PALEOEARTHQUAKES ALONG PUXIONG FAULT OF DALIANGSHAN FAULT ZONE DURING LATE QUATERNARY

Daliangshan fault zone (DFZ) constitutes an indispensable part of Xianshuihe-Xiaojiang fault system which is one of the main large continental strong earthquake faults in China.Puxiong Fault,the east branch of middle segment of DFZ,is the longest secondary fault.Its paleoseismic activity plays an important role in evaluating regional seismic activity level and building countermeasures of preventing and reducing the earthquake damage.The active fault mapping as well as the study of paleoseismological trench in recent years illustrates that Puxiong Fault is a slightly west-dipping high-angle left-lateral strike-slip fault with strong activity since late Pleistocene.Two trenches excavated across this fault reveal 2 and 3 paleoearthquakes that ruptured the fault at 8206 BC-1172 AD,1084-1549 AD,and 17434-7557 BC,1577-959 BC and 927-1360 AD,respectively.The OxCal model combining the results from both trenches and the another one in previous study across the fault with the historical earthquake record yields the elapsed time of~0.7ka of the latest paleoearthquake event,and the interval time is~2.3ka between the last two events.In the model,the penultimate event is considered to be recorded in all trenches.As all the three trenches are located at north part of the Puxiong Fault whose strike is apparently different from the south part,the~57km long north secondary segment is supposed to be the seismogenic structure of the paleoearthquake.According to the empirical scaling laws between magnitude and rupture length,the magnitude of the surface ruptured paleoearthquake is estimated to be more than M7 with the coseismic displacement~3.5m.However,the difference between the time of the paleoearthquake events on the middle and south segments of DFZ illustrates their independence as earthquake fracture units,and furthermore,the lower connectivity and the new generation of DFZ.