A regional scale bathymetric map of the fast slipping (11.0 cm/yr) Clipperton transform boundary and adjoining East Pacific Rise segments has been constructed using the high-resolution capabilities of Sea Beam. The transform domain is 85 km long, varies in width from 10 to 20 km, and is defined by an assemblage of transform-parallel ridges and troughs, the largest of which is a 40-km-long median ridge that stands up to 700 m above the surrounding seafloor. These major topographic elements of the transform domain are bisected by a very narrow (<1 km) swath of strongly lineated terrain composed of elongate depressions, narrow lozenge-shaped ridges, and gullies that integrate spatially to create a narrow zone of disturbed topography. This zone trends 082¿ and cuts like a knife across the grain of the Clipperton transform domain, linking one truncated ridge tip with the other. We interpret this swath of disturbed terrain to be the product of strike-slip tectonism thereby fixing the location of the present-day plate boundary. The present-day structural geometry of the Clipperton transform appears relatively simple and characterized by a narrow strike-slip plate boundary linking two offset ridge axis. |