Transform faults (Wilson)
Fallas transformantes (Wilson)
- Date
- 1965 · confidence high
- Place
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Credited to
- John Tuzo Wilson
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
John Tuzo Wilson proposed that ridges, trenches and faults are joined in a continuous network of plate boundaries, and that a new type of fault, the transform, converts the motion of one ridge into that of another without creating or destroying crust. It logically completed the plate tectonics model.
Published in Nature in 1965 ('A new class of faults and their bearing on continental drift'). It was confirmed by earthquake focal mechanisms (Sykes, 1967).
What it led to
- a global network of plate boundaries
- an explanation of the San Andreas Fault