Some Famous Transform Boundaries In The World You Should Know About

A transform boundary is a fault along a plate boundary where the plates move horizontally.

A plate boundary ends abruptly when it connects to another boundary creating a transform boundary. No two transform boundaries are geologically similar.

The concept of transform boundaries was first narrated by Canadian geophysicist John Tuzo Wilson in 1965. Even though Wilson was skeptical about the plate tectonics theory at first, his work became one of the most significant discoveries in the world later. Our understanding of tectonic plates and faults is still based on his pioneering theory.

Transform boundaries can give rise to strike-slip faults, and the included movements are generally horizontal. It neither destroys nor creates land. Sometimes they are said to be conservative boundaries.

The San Andreas Fault is one of the most famous transform boundaries of the world. It is located off the coast of northwestern United States and occurred during the Oligocene, around 34-24 million years ago. There are many other transform boundaries in their world, and reading about such boundaries will amaze you.

If you are interested in more interesting content, then keep on reading the articles on famous South Dakotans and famous thunderstorm fun facts too.

What are some famous transform boundaries?

Two plates sliding past one another horizontally causes the Earth's surface of that region to be torn apart by the enormous amount of energy created by the plate tectonic forces. Grinding and slipping of such tectonic plate boundaries are important events related to calamities such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Some major transform plate boundaries are located in different places of the world.

San Andreas Fault is perhaps the more well-known continental transform fault that forms the tectonic transform plate boundary between the North American Plate and Pacific Plate. The San Andreas fault zone extends for 750 mi (1200 km) in California.

In 1953, a geologist stated that lateral movement of the tectonic plates for hundreds of miles is possible along the San Andreas Fault zone. It was discovered that the formation of the San Andreas Fault began in the Cenozoic period, 30 million years ago.

Around this time, the spreading center of the Pacific Plate and the Farallon plate was starting to reach the subduction zone along the western coast of North America. This fault was created due to the differences in the relative motion between the Pacific Plate and North American Plate and the Farallon plate and North American Plate.

The San Andreas Fault zone runs for such a long length that it is divided into northern, central, and southern zones. The south zone of the San Andreas Fault occurred five million years ago.

Earthquakes of moderate to large magnitude are common along the plate boundaries of the San Andreas Fault. The stress level along the fault increases, which has made the possibility of an earthquake of magnitude greater than seven to occur recently in California.

The Queen Charlotte Fault is another North American fault located in Canada, equivalent to the San Andreas Fault in California. This transform plate boundary marks the boundary of the North American Plate and Pacific Plate.

The tectonic plates and seismologic movements of the Queen Charolette Fault are as active as other major faults. The fault boundary continues in the north along the Alaska Coast, known as the Fairweather fault.

The rate of convergence of the fault lines decreases from north to south which changes the obliquity of the fault.

This divides the fault into three kinematic zones with changes in the ocean floor morphology, seismicity, and structural change of the plate tectonics. The fault holds the highest record of deformation rates of the continental crust and oceanic crust.

The Dead Sea Transform Fault System (also called the Dead Sea Rift) can be defined as a series of transform faults between the Arabian Plate in the east and the African Plate in the west, forming transform plate boundaries. The Dead Sea Fault was formed during the mid-Miocene because of the changes in plate motions.

In the initial phase of the formation of the fault, it reached up to the region of southern Lebanon of the present day.

Displacement continued till the late Miocene. By Pliocene, the transform fault boundary crossed Lebanon and extended up to Syria before combining with the East Anatolian Fault.

The Chaman Fault is one of the major fault systems of Asia. This active geographical fault lies between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it extends for love 528 mi (850 km).

It is a system of geographical faults responsible for separating the Eurasian plate boundary from the Indo-Australian plate boundary. It is primarily a transform plate boundary of the strike-slip type.

The Chaman Plate starts from the triple junction of the Arabian Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, and Eurasian Plate. It runs northeast of Pakistan and Balochistan and enters Afghanistan extending west of Kabul across the Herat Fault. The Chaman Fault has a compressional component since the Eurasian Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate collides.

The parallel mountain ranges lying on the east of Balochistan, for example, the Kirthar Range and Zarro Mountains, have resulted from the compressional plate boundary. This range lies parallel to the fault on the eastern side.

The North Anatolian Fault is another strike-slip transform plate boundary in Northern Anatolia. This transform plate boundary lies between the Eurasian and Anatolian plate boundaries.

It extends northeast from the East Anatolian Fault across eastern Turkey and finally into the Aegean Sea. The morphology of the North Anatolian Fault is quite similar to that of the San Andreas Fault. Both are transformed plate boundaries having similar slip rates and lengths.

The Sagaing Fault is a major right-lateral fault in Burma lying between the Indian plate and the Sunda plate. It is a long fault which finally drains into the Gulf of Martaban.

The faults begin from the ocean floor in the Andaman Sea in India and pass across the central Myanmar Basin. The slip rate across the India and Sunda plate boundaries is 1.37 in (35 mm) per year.

What are three transform boundaries examples?

Earth's surface resembles a jigsaw puzzle if you look beneath its crust. The Earth's crust and the upper mantle, which make up the lithosphere, comprise several pieces of plates called the tectonic plates.

Tectonic plates are responsible for the construction of the Earth's crust, and the upper mantle is not stationary; they are continuously on the move. However, they are merely sliding past each other without frequently causing plate boundaries crunching.

The Earth's crust is composed of 20 tectonic plates. Enormous sections of the crust fit together roughly, and the places where they meet are called plate boundaries.

When two tectonic plates slide past each other, a massive amount of plate tectonics energy is produced, which can cause earthquakes. Volcanoes are also often found near a transform plate boundary since the molten rock within the Earth called magma can travel upward due to the force created by the plate tectonics movement at such intersections.

Transform boundaries can be of many types; it depends on the nature of the movement of two plates.

For example, if two tectonic plates come together and form a collision zone, they are called convergent plate boundaries.

If the two plates spread apart and move in opposite directions, then it is called a divergent boundary, and if two plates cross each other horizontally, it is called a transform plate boundary. Each of these plate boundaries is characterized by different geological features.

In the case of the convergence of typical convergent plate boundaries like the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, towering mountain ranges are formed. When these two plates collided, the Himalayas were formed due to the force created by convergent boundaries, which crumpled the Earth's crust and pushed it upward.

However, in some cases of convergent plate boundaries, the force produced might result in one tectonic plate sinking beneath the other.

This process is called subduction, and it includes forcing a denser and an older tectonic plate underneath a young and less dense plate.

Convergent boundaries also form such types of subduction zones. Ocean trenches are formed when a subduction zone occurs on the oceanic crust due to convergent plate boundaries.

The trenches on the oceanic crust are some of the deepest places; some are deeper than the highest peak of Earth. The subduction zone may also result in the formation of a chain of volcanoes near the convergent boundaries. One such volcano range is found in western North America, spanning across California, Oregon, and Washington.

A divergent boundary is associated with the formation of underwater mountain chains known as mid-ocean ridges. A ridge is formed when the magma fills the spaces between the spreading tectonic plates.

One example of a ridge formed by plates moving in opposite directions is the Mid Atlantic Ridge.

The Mid Atlantic Ridge is an undersea mountain range on the oceanic crust formed by two pairs of tectonic plates moving in opposite directions. The Eurasian and the North American Plates in the north and the African Plate and the South American Plate in the south resulted in the formation of that large ridge on the oceanic crust.

Some of these ridges occur at great depths underwater, and for this reason, scientists find it challenging to study the surface of the ridges; instead, they have more information about the surface of other planets in the solar system.

Oceanic fracture zones found underwater offset a spreading ridge horizontally. They act as underwater valleys.

A transform plate boundary results from two tectonic plates sliding up against each other horizontally. A tectonic plate does not necessarily have one type of plate boundary; it can have multiple types of plate boundaries. For example, one of the largest plate tectonics, the Pacific Plate, is made up of transform boundary, convergent boundary, and divergent boundary.

What places have transform boundaries?

Transform boundaries are found in many places on Earth. Most transform boundaries are located on the seafloor, like the mid-oceanic ridges found in the Atlantic ocean and the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

Some complex transform boundaries are found on the continental crust, such as the San Andreas fault in California, Alpine fault in New Zealand, North Anatolian fault in Turkey, and many more.

These faults are high-angle faults, and they show strike-slip offsets during earthquakes. Unlike oceanic crust, they are influenced by chucks of enormous landmass around them, creating compression or extension.

The Earth's lithosphere is extremely thick; for this reason, these cracks formed in the faults are not just cracks. They rupture the lithosphere, disrupting and deforming it for hundreds of miles.

These never occur as single faults; instead, a series of subparallel faults results in a transform boundary. The faults are generally subparallel since they are formed along the slip lines.

California's famous San Andreas Fault is actually a sub-portion of a massive fault line running for around a hundred miles in width. The other sub-portions of the actual larger fault include the Walker Lane Belt in the Sierra Nevada and the Hayward Fault.

In some places along the compressional belt, two thrusts faulted mountain ranges forming subsiding basins. These basins are called ramp valleys.

The ramp valley starts as pull-up basins on Earth, but they become very elongated as the fault's movement continues. There are currently 60 pull-up basins on Earth.

Some ranges have also formed along the transform boundaries. When the plates along the section of the fault move, the extra volume of the crust compresses into a bend.

Transverse France along the San Andreas Fault and Mount McKinley along the Denali Fault are examples of places formed by the compressional bends. These types of bends have a distinct geometrical form known as the flower or the palm tree structure with a slip fault in the center and branches of faults arising from the main fault.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created many interesting family-friendly articles for everyone to enjoy!

If you liked our suggestions for some famous transform boundaries in the world you should know about, then why not take a look at 21 famous things from Georgia that the world should know about or the five deadliest and famous thunderstorms the human race has ever seen?