The New Zealand Community Fault Model – version 1.0: an improved geological foundation for seismic hazard modelling

ABSTRACT

The New Zealand Community Fault Model (NZ CFM) is a publicly available representation of New Zealand fault zones that have the potential to produce damaging earthquakes. Compiled through collaborative engagement between New Zealand earthquake-science experts, this first edition (version 1.0) of the NZ CFM builds upon previous compilations of earthquake-source active fault models with the addition of new and modified information. Developed primarily to support an update of the New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model, the NZ CFM comprises two principal components. The first dataset is a two-dimensional map representation of the surface traces of 880 generalised fault zones. Each fault zone is assigned specific geometric and kinematic attributes, including uncertainties, supplemented with a subjective quality ranking focused primarily on the confidence in assigned slip rates. The second component is a three-dimensional representation of the fault zones as triangulated mesh surfaces that are projected down-dip from the two-dimensional mapped traces to a geophysically-defined maximum fault rupture depth. This article summarises the compilation and parameterisation of the NZ CFM, along with background on its relation to predecessor datasets, and forward applications to probabilistic seismic hazard assessment and physics-based earthquake models currently being developed for Aotearoa New Zealand.

KEYWORDS:

• Community fault model
• active faults
• capable faults
• slip rate
• fault source model

Acknowledgements

J Griffin published with the permission of the CEO, Geoscience Australia. We are grateful to Petroleum Experts for providing support for the MOVE^TM structural modelling software suite. We thank Scott Marshall and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments and consequent improvements to this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The digital data associated with the New Zealand Community Fault Model v1.0, as documented in detail by Seebeck et al. (2022) are open and available via the GNS Science Data Catalogue record at doi: 10.21420/NMSX-WP67

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to GNS Science via the National Seismic Hazard Model Programme (contract 2020-BD101); Strategic Science Investment Fund (contract C05X1702); National Science Challenges via the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges Earthquake and Tsunami Programme (contract C05X1901).