... at the well-known Branch River and Saxton River sites along the Wairau (Alpine) and Awatere strike-slip faults, South Island, New Zealand, reveal that fault-related deformation patterns expressed in the topography at these sites are markedly less structurally complex along the higher-displacement (hundreds...

... anisotropic lower crust beneath the two northernmost faults of the fault system. These observations suggest that distributed deformation, not slip on a narrow vertical fault, accommodates displacement in the lower crust below the 120–480 km of right-lateral slip across the Wairau fault, one splay...

... restraining bend of the Alpine fault has the same average slip rate as the Wairau fault, 4-6 mm/yr. Even though the Alpine fault is an east-dipping, reverse-separation fault at the restraining bend, this low slip rate results in uplift of the Spenser Mountains east of the bend at a rate lower than...

..., the Wairau Fault ( Fig. 1 ), which is one of the main strands of the Alpine Fault that separates the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates ( Fig. 1 ). The Pelorus River catchment that is the topic of this study lies to the north of the Wairau Fault ( Fig. 1 ), and is underlain by metasedimentary rocks...

... Fault Kerepehi Fault Picton Fault Waimea-Flaxmore Fault Arbitrary placement Awatere Fault, rotation boundary Clarence Fault, rotation boundary Wairau Fault Awatere Fault Clarence Fault Hope Fault Hope & Hurunui Bluff faults Hope Fault Hurunui Bluff Fault Axis of oroclinal bending Alpine Fault 2000 m...

...Figure 2. Calculation of exponential decay rates ( b values) from offset measurements. (A–C) Example offset data from the (A) Wairau, South Island, New Zealand; (B) San Andreas, California, USA; and (C) San Jacinto, California, faults that span a range of b values (the distribution of small...

...) to the west of the township is also indicated. The Wairau Plains are situated in the northeastern corner of the South Island of New Zealand (Fig.  1 ). The plains are bounded by northeast‐trending mountain ranges reflecting uplift along the Wairau and Awatere faults. The faults comprise part...

... and marine terraces). Seismic event ages were obtained from the following sources: Vernon fault ( Pondard and Barnes, 2010 ); Wairau fault ( Barnes and Pondard, 2010 ; Nicol et al. , 2011 ); Awatere fault ( Mason et al. , 2006 ); Cloudy fault ( Pondard and Barnes, 2010 ); Wairarapa fault ( Little et al...