The Hope Fault is a major right-lateral strike-slip fault on the South Island of New Zealand, running about 230 kilometres eastward from the Alpine Fault toward the coast near Kaikoura. It is part of the Marlborough Fault System, a splay of faults that transfers plate-boundary motion from the Alpine Fault to the offshore Hikurangi subduction zone.
The Hope Fault carries one of the highest slip rates of any onshore fault in the country, moving at roughly 20 to 25 millimetres per year, which makes it a leading candidate for future large earthquakes. Its trace is strikingly clear across river valleys and mountain flanks, offering geologists textbook examples of offset streams and ridges.
The fault produced the destructive 1888 North Canterbury (Amuri) earthquake, estimated at around magnitude 7, which offset fences and buildings and provided some of the earliest measurements of horizontal fault displacement. Segments of the Hope Fault were also involved in the complex, multi-fault 2016 Kaikoura earthquake (magnitude 7.8).