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Controlled and natural source seismic data are used to build a 3‐D P wave model for southern North Island, New Zealand, where the Pacific Plate subducts beneath the Australian Plate at a rate of ~41 mm/year. Our analysis reveals an abrupt along‐strike transition in overthrusting plate structure within Cook Strait. Contrasts in properties (Vp, Vp/Vs, and Qs) likely reflects the degree of deformation in the Australian Plate, where the Alpine‐Wairau and Awatere Faults mark the northern boundary of a terrane that has undergone >50° of clockwise vertical‐axis rotation since the early Miocene. Heterogeneity of the crustal transition is likely associated with changes in frictional and elastic properties that may impact elastic stress accumulation and inhibit southward propagation of megathrust earthquakes. Low connectivity of faults in Cook Strait is consistent with the heterogeneity we observe and may promote complex earthquake triggering by lateral stress loading during earthquakes or slow slip events.

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We analyze the orientation of the stress field in the southern Hikurangi subduction zone, New Zealand, using focal mechanism inversions, S wave splitting fast directions, and gravitational stresses. Here the oceanic Pacific plate is being obliquely subducted beneath the continental Australian plate in the New Zealand plate boundary zone. The study makes use of 399 earthquakes for focal mechanism inversion and 425 earthquakes for shear wave splitting analysis, located with a network of seismic stations spanning southern North Island. We distinguish between stresses in the Pacific plate (from focal mechanism inversion) and Australian plate (from S wave fast directions) and gravitational stresses, in three regions: Western, Central Basin, and Eastern. In the Western region, the principal axis of horizontal compression (SHmax) is oriented NE‐SW, parallel to the margin, in the upper Australian and lower Pacific plate. In the Central Basin, SHmax in the Australian plate is oriented NW‐SE, perpendicular to the margin; in the lower subducting Pacific plate SHmax is oriented NE‐SW. In the Eastern region, SHmax is oriented NE‐SW in the upper plate, while in the lower plate there is a change in orientation to NNW‐SSE. We interpret the stress orientations of the lower plate in the Western and Central Basin regions as a consequence of bending of the subducting plate. Sources of upper Australian plate stresses are likely to be bending stresses, gravitational stresses, and tectonic loading, with differing relative magnitudes across the study area.

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