RUPTURE CHARACTERISTICS OF LATE QUATERNARY STRONG EARTHQUAKES ON THE WESTERN BRANCH OF THE XIAOJIANG FAULT ZONE |
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| Authors: | LI Xi RAN Yong-kang WU Fu-yao MA Xing-quan ZHANG Yan-qi CAO Jun |
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| Affiliation: | 1.Earthquake Administration of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650224, China;2.Key Laboratory of Active Tectonics and Volcano, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China |
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| Abstract: | The Xiaojiang fault zone is located in the southeastern margin of the Tibetan plateau, the boundary faults of Sichuan-Yunnan block and South China block. The largest historical earthquake in Yunnan Province, with magnitude 8 occurred on the western branch of the Xiaojiang Fault in Songming County, 1833. Research on the Late Quaternary surface deformation and strong earthquake rupture behavior on the Xiaojiang Fault is crucial to understand the future seismic risk of the fault zone and the Sichuan-Yunnan region, even crucial for the study of tectonic evolution of the southeastern margin of Tibetan plateau. We have some new understanding through several large trenches excavated on the western branch of the Xiaojiang fault zone. We excavated a large trench at Caohaizi and identified six paleoseismic events, named U through Z from the oldest to the youngest. Ages of these six events are constrained at 40000-36300BC, 35400-24800BC, 9500BC-500AD, 390-720AD, 1120-1620AD and 1750AD-present. The Ganhaizi trench revealed three paleoearthquakes, named GHZ-E1 to GHZ-E3 from the oldest to the youngest. Ages of the three events are constrained at 3300BC-400AD, 770-1120AD, 1460AD-present. The Dafendi trench revealed three paleoearthquakes, named E1 to E3 from the oldest to the youngest, and their ages are constrained at 22300-19600BC, 18820-18400BC, and 18250-present. Caohaizi and Ganhaizi trenches are excavated on the western branch of the Xiaojiang Fault, the distance between them is 400m. We constrained four late Holocene paleoearthquakes with progressive constraining method, which are respectively at 500-720AD, 770-1120AD, AD 1460-1620 and 1833AD, with an average recurrence interval of 370~440a. Large earthquake recurrence in the late Holocene is less than the recurrence interval of~900a as proposed in the previous studies. Thus, the seismic hazard on the Xiaojiang Fault should be reevaluated. We excavated a large trench at Dafendi, about 30km away south of Caohaizi trench. Combining with previous paleoseismological research, it is found that the western branch of Xiaojiang Fault was likely to be dominated by segmented rupturing in the period from late of Late Pleistocene to early and middle Holocene, while it was characterized by large earthquakes clustering and whole segment rupturing since late Holocene. |
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| Keywords: | the western branch of the Xiaojiang fault zone large scale trench paleoearthquake recurrence interval rupture characteristics of the fault |
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