Towards understanding earthquake nucleation on a severely misoriented plate boundary fault, Alpine Fault, New Zealand

New Zealand's Alpine Fault has accommodated relative motion between the Australian and Pacific plates for over 23 million years: first as strike-slip fault and then as an oblique transpressional fault. Despite being driven by principal stresses whose orientations have undoubtedly changed with time, the Alpine Fault continues to accommodate 70% of the relative plate boundary motion. Fault outcrop data and seismic reflection data indicate that the central Alpine Fault is consistently oriented 055/45°SE at depths up to 15 km (i.e., throughout the seismogenic zone); focal mechanisms indicate that the stress tensor is oriented σ1=σHmax=0/117°, σ2=σv, and σ3=0/207° (Boese et al. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2013.06.030). At depth, the central Alpine Fault lies at an angle of 51° to σ1. The Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion stipulates that, for incohesive rocks, reactivation of a fault requires sufficient driving stress to overcome frictional resistance to slip. Using a coefficient of friction (μ) of 0.6, as measured for representative Alpine Fault rocks under in situ conditions (Neimeijer et al. 2016, doi:10.1002/2015JB012593), and an estimated stress shape ratio (Φ=(σ2 - σ3)/(σ1 - σ3)=0.5), a 3-D reactivation analysis was performed (Leclère and Fabbri 2013, doi:10.1016/j.jsg.2012.11.004). Results show that the Alpine Fault is severely misoriented for failure, requiring pore fluid pressures greater than the least principal stress to initiate frictional sliding. However, microstructural evidence, including pseudotachylytes and fault gouge injection structures, suggests that earthquakes nucleate and propagate along this major plate boundary fault. By assuming an increase in differential stress of 15 MPa/km, our analysis shows that reactivation may occur with suprahydrostatic pore fluid pressures given a ≥10° counterclockwise rotation of σHmax. Using measured hydraulic data, we estimate the potential for pore fluid overpressure development within the Alpine Fault core. Using 3-D measurements of the elastic properties of fault rocks comprising the entire fault zone, we also explore whether processes including foliation development and grain-size reduction enable stress rotations sufficient to explain earthquake nucleation in frictionally strong materials and, thus, continued strain localization.