page_title: Fracture zone
section_title: Blanco Fracture Zone
hierarchical_section_title: Fracture zone / Examples of fracture zones / Blanco Fracture Zone
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Geological Survey: USGS CMG InfoBank Atlas: Blanco Fracture Zone regions at http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/gazette/html/regions/bfz.html
context_page_description: A fracture zone is a linear oceanic feature—often hundreds, even thousands of kilometers long—resulting from the action of offset mid-ocean ridge axis segments. They are a consequence of plate tectonics. Lithospheric plates on either side of an active transform fault move in opposite directions; here, strike-slip activity occurs. Fracture zones extend past the transform faults, away from the ridge axis; seismically inactive, they display evidence of past transform fault activity, primarily in the different ages of the crust on opposite sides of the zone.
  In actual usage, many transform faults aligned with fracture zones are often loosely referred to as "fracture zones" although technically, they are not.
context_section_description: The Blanco Fracture Zone is a fracture zone running between the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge. The dominating feature of the fracture zone is the 150 km long Blanco Ridge, which is a high-angle, right-lateral strike slip fault with some component of dip-slip faulting.
caption: U.S.G.S. Blanco Fracture Zone regions image
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