| Summary: | While most aspects of subduction have been extensively studied, the process of subduction initiation lacks an observational foundation. The Macquarie Ridge complex (MRC) forms the Pacific-Australia plate boundary between New Zealand to the north and the Pacific-Australia-Antarctica triple junction to the south. The MRC consists of alternating troughs and rises and is characterized by a transitional tectonic environment in which subduction initiation presently occurs. There is a high seismicity level with 15 large earthquakes (M>7) in this century. Our seismological investigation is centered on the largest event since 1943: the 25 MAY 1981 earthquake. Love, Rayleigh, andP waves are inverted to find: a faulting geometry of right-lateral strike-slip along the local trend of the Macquarie Ridge (N30°E); a seismic moment of 5×10^(27) dyn cm (M_w=7.7) a double event rupture process with a fault length of less than 100km to the southwest of the epicenter and a fault depth of less than 20km. Three smaller thrust earthquakes occurred previous to the 1981 event along the 1981 rupture zone; their shallow-dipping thrust planes are virtually adjacent to the 1981 vertical fault plane. Oblique convergence in this region is thus accommodated by a dual rupture mode of several small thrust events and a large strike-slip event. Our study of other large MRC earthquakes, plus those of other investigators, produces focal mechanisms for 15 earthquakes distributed along the entire MRC; thrust and right-lateral strike-slip events are scattered throughout the MRC. Thus, all of the MRC is characterized by oblique convergence and the dual rupture mode. The "true" best-fit rotation pole for the Pacific-Australia motion is close to the Minster & Jordan RM2 pole for the Pacific-India motion. Southward migration of the rotation pole has caused the recent transition to oblique convergence in the northern MRC. We propose a subduction initiation process that is akin to crack propagation; the 1981 earthquake rupture area is identified as ...
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