Holocene activities of the Taigu fault zone, Shanxi Province, and their relations with the 1303 Hongdong M=8 earthquake

Introduction The Taigu fault is located on the eastern boundary of the Jinzhong basin in the Shanxi fault depression system, which is one of the 12 major active basin boundary faults, and is also less studied among them. The reason for this is, firstly, the Jinzhong basin has no historical earth-quakes with M 7, while the two basins linked together in the northern and southern sides, the Linfen and Xinding basins all have had historical earthquakes with M 7; secondly, because the Jiaochen…

Holocene activities of the Taigu fault zone,Shanxi Province, and their relations with the 1303 Hongdong M=8 earthquake

The Taigu fault zone is one of the major 12 active boundary faults of the Shanxi fault-depression system, located on the eastern boundary of the Jinzhong basin. As the latest investigation indicated, the fault zone had dislocated gully terrace of the first order, forming fault-scarp in front of the loess mesa. It has been discovered in many places in ground surface and trenches that Holocene deposits were dislocated. The latest activity was the 1303 Hongdong earthquake M=8, the fault appeared as right-lateral strike-slip with normal faulting. During that earthquake, the Taigu fault together with the Mianshan western-side fault on the Lingshi upheaval and the Huoshan pediment fault on the eastern boundary of the Linfen basin was being active, forming a surface rupture belt of 160 km in length. Moreover, the Taigu fault were active in the mid-stage of Holocene and near 7 700 aB.P. From these we learnt that, in Shanxi fault-depression system, the run-through activity of two boundary faults of depression-basins might generate great earthquake with M=8.