LATE QUATERNARY FAULTING OF JIALI FAULT

Jiali fault is one of the major faults in southeastern Tibetan plateau. From Naqu to Jiali along which the field investigation has been done, the fault roughly extends in N60W direction and consists of three segments arranged in en echelon. From Luoermano to Esukongma (about 40km) where the fault is the northern boundary of the Sangdi basin that extend north\|south, late Quaternary surface ruptures have been found. Within this segment the creeks and gullies that cross the fault were offset and the displacements range from several meters to about 5km. The average slip rate during late Quaternary is about 10mm/a for this segment. An interesting phenomena is that the large displacement can only be found at those places where the fault is related to the basins that extend north\|south. Outside the basins, no convincing evidence has been found for late Quaternary surface ruptures and average slip rate for the whole fault is only about 3mm/a middle Pleistocene. It seems that these strike\|slip faults behave like a transform fault and the strike\|slip motion along them were a consequence of east\|west extension that creates the north\|south graben systems rather than the vice versa.