Then the plates started to collide, the crust of New Zealand came under pressure and the Alpine Fault was formed.
The pressure applied from 25 to 15 million years ago had simply been too much and the crust thickened.
From 5 million years ago to the present day the rate of uplift has accelerated.
In total about 20 kilometres of uplift has taken place during the Kaikoura Orogeny but most of this has been eroded away.
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