A PRELIMINARY RESEARCH ON THE RIGHT-LATERAL STRIKE-SLIP CHARACTERISTICS AND THE STRUCTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NORTHERN KUANTANSHAN FAULTS,HEXI CORRIDER,BASED ON HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGERY

The sinistral strike-slip characteristic of the Altyn Tagh Fault gradually disappears near the Jiuxi Basin at the west end of Hexi Corridor, and the Kuantanshan Fault and the northern marginal fault of Heishan on its east are thrust structures. There are two faults distributed in the north of Kuantanshan, namely, the Taerwan-Chijiaciwo Fault and the Ganxiashan Fault, both are featured with obvious activity. Predecessors thought that the Taerwan-Chijiaciwo Fault is a thrust fault with low movement rate, but there is few detailed study on its horizontal motion. Is there horizontal strike-slip movement in the northern marginal fault of Kuantanshan? This issue has an important significance to further explore the structural transformation mode between the Altyn Tagh strike-slip faults and the northern thrust faults in the north margin of Qilianshan. Using high resolution remote sensing images and field work, such as combining with UAV SfM photogrammetry, the paper studies the strike-slip characteristics of the Taerwan-Chijiaciwo Fault and Ganxiashan Fault on the northern margin of Kuantanshan, and get two preliminary understandings:(1) The northern marginal fault of Kuantanshan is an active right-lateral strike-slip fault with thrust component, the horizontal to vertical dislocation ratio is about 3-4 times. Based on the statistics of dislocation amount of the gullies and terraces along the north marginal Kuantanshan fault, it is preliminarily estimated that the late Pleistocene right-lateral strike-slip rate is about 0.2-0.25 mm/a and the Holocene right-lateral strike-slip rate is about 0.5-1.5 mm/a. (2) The main driving force to the tectonics at the western end of Hexi Corridor, where the northern marginal fault of Kuantanshan locates, comes from the northward extrusion of the Qilian Mountains, which results in the right-lateral strike-slip of the northern marginal fault of Kuananshan and the thrust movement of several faults inside the Jiuxi Basin. The effect of the Altyn Tagh Fault on other tectonic structures is not obvious in this region.