The Alpine Fault forms part of the on-land Pacific-Australian plate boundary. Generally the fault has a simple straight trace, striking ca. 055° and dipping moderately eastwards, but in central areas it is serially partitioned. Late Quaternary strike-slip rates are 23-25 mm/yr, but dip-slip rates range from ca. 10 mm/yr in the central part, reducing north and south and reaching zero southwest of Jackson Bay. Due to oblique-slip, mylonites are exhumed from ca. 25 km in a ca. 1 km wide fault zone east of the present trace, undergoing intense cataclasis close to the fault at shallow levels. Pseudotachylytes are generated by preferential melting of phyllosilicaterich assemblages. Ductile shear strain is high, reaching 200-300 in ultramylonites. Displacement of metamorphic zones and a pegmatite swarm, with respect to their location in the hanging wall is consistent with ca. 100 km of dextral ductile shear within the mylonites since ca. 5 Ma.