Late Quaternary systematic stream offsets caused by repeated large seismic events along the Kunlun fault, northern Tibet

The Kunlun fault is one of the largest strike-slip faults in northern Tibet, China. In this paper, we focus upon the Kusai Lake–Kunlun Pass segment of the fault to understand the geomorphic development of offset streams caused by repeated large seismic events, based on tectono-geomorphic analysis of high-resolution satellite remote sensing images combined with field studies. The results indicate that systematic left-lateral stream offsets appear at various scales across the fault zone: Lateral offsets of small gullies caused by the 2001 M_w 7.8 Kunlun earthquake vary typically from 3 m to 6 m, meanwhile streams with cumulative offsets of 10 m, 25–30 m, 50–70 m, 250–300 m and 750–1400 m have resulted from repeated large seismic events during the late Quaternary. An average slip rate of 10 ± 1 mm/year has been estimated from the lateral stream offsets and ¹⁴C ages of alluvial fan surfaces incised by the streams. A three-dimensional model showing tectono-geomorphic features along a left-lateral strike-slip fault is also presented. The Kusai Lake–Kunlun Pass segment provides an opportunity to understand the relationship between geomorphic features produced by individual large seismic events and long-term geomorphic development caused by repeated large seismic events along a major strike-slip fault.     

Late Palaeozoic to Triassic evolution of the Turan and Scythian platforms: The pre-history of the Palaeo-Tethyan closure

A number of en échelon-arranged, southwest-facing arc fragments of Palaeozoic to Jurassic ages, sandwiched between two fairly straight east-northeast trending boundaries, constitute the basement of the Scythian and the Turan platforms located between the Laurasian and Tethyside units. They have until now largely escaped detection owing to extensive Jurassic and younger cover and the inaccessibility of the subsurface data to the international geological community. These units are separated from one another by linear/gently-curved faults of great length and steep dip. Those that are exposed show evidence of strike-slip motion. The arc units originally constituted parts of a single “Silk Road Arc” located somewhere south of the present-day central Asia for much of the Palaeozoic, although by the late Carboniferous they had been united into a continental margin arc south of the Tarim basin and equivalent units to the west and east. They were stacked into their present places in northern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Caucasus and the northern Black Sea by large-scale, right-lateral strike-slip coastwise transport along arc-slicing and arc-shaving strike-slip faults in the Triassic and medial Jurassic simultaneously with the subductive elimination of Palaeo-Tethys. This gigantic dextral zone (“the Silk Road transpression”) was a trans-Eurasian structure and was active simultaneously with another, similar system, the Gornostaev keirogen and greatly distorted Eurasia. The late Palaeozoic to Jurassic internal deformation of the Dniepr–Donets aulacogen was also a part of the dextral strain in southern Europe. When the emplacement of the Scythian and Turan units was completed, the elimination of Palaeo-Tethys had also ended and Neo-Tethyan arcs were constructed atop their ruins, mostly across their southern parts. The western end of the great dextral zone that emplaced the Turan and Scythian units horsetails just east of north Dobrudja and a small component goes along the Tornquist–Teisseyre lineament.     

Role of the Kazerun fault system in active deformation of the Zagros fold-and-thrust belt (Iran)

Field structural and SPOT image analyses document the kinematic framework enhancing transfer of strike-slip partitioned motion from along the backstop to the interior of the Zagros fold-and-thrust belt in a context of plate convergence slight obliquity. Transfer occurs by slip on the north-trending right-lateral Kazerun Fault System (KFS) that connects to the Main Recent Fault, a major northwest-trending dextral fault partitioning oblique convergence at the rear of the belt. The KFS formed by three fault zones ended by bent orogen-parallel thrusts allows slip from along the Main Recent Fault to become distributed by transfer to longitudinal thrusts and folds. To cite this article: C. Authemayou et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).     

Early development of strike-slip faulting: palaeoseismic study along the Petersen Mountain fault,northern Walker Lane,Nevada

Characterising youthful strike-slip fault systems within transtensional regimes is often complicated by the presence of tectonic geomorphic features produced by normal faulting associated with oblique extension. The Petersen Mountain fault in the northern Walker Lane tectonic province exhibits evidence of both normal and strike-slip faulting. We present the results of geologic and geomorphic mapping, and palaeoseismic trenching that characterise the fault's style and sense of deformation. The fault consists of two major traces. The western trace displaces colluvial, landslide, and middle to late Pleistocene alluvial fans and is associated with aligned range front saddles, linear drainages, and oversteepened range front slopes. The eastern trace is associated with a low linear bedrock ridge, a narrow graben, right deflected stream channels, and scarps in late Pleistocene alluvial fan deposits. A trench on the eastern trace of the fault exposed a clear juxtaposition of disintegrated granodiorite bedrock against sand and boulder alluvial fan deposits across a steeply east-dipping fault. The stratigraphic evidence supports the occurrence of at least one late Pleistocene earthquake with a component of lateral displacement. As such, the Petersen Mountain fault accommodates part of the ~7 mm/yr of dextral shear distributed across the northern Walker Lane.     

Early growth fault activity: new evidence for extension in the upper Cambrian Owen Group,Proprietary Peak,western Tasmania,Australia

The coarse-grained, upper Cambrian Owen Group of western and northern Tasmania is a prominent feature of the Tasmanian landscape and regional map series. The group has previously been divided into four informal formations (Lower Owen Conglomerate, Middle Owen Sandstone, Middle Owen Conglomerate and Upper Owen Sandstone) that have been correlated across the state over tens to hundreds of kilometres. The deposition of these sediments is largely believed to have occurred during extensional tectonics, but some authors continue to argue a compressional tectonic regime. Detailed mapping and sedimentological work around Proprietary Peak on the Mount Jukes massif, 10 km south of Queenstown, Tasmania, has identified significant depositional variations controlled by early growth faulting and paleotopography. Discontinuity of stratigraphic units (L6–L13) across two growth faults on the north face of Proprietary Peak shows the strong effect on sediment deposition in the area. Paleotopography is also evident with most stratigraphic units (L8–L13 and U1) gradually onlapping basement during their deposition. Significant paleotopography has also been identified on East Jukes Peak, where lower Owen Group sedimentary units onlap basement volcanics, with no evidence for tectonically controlled deposition. Field evidence strongly supports the deposition of the Owen Group during extensional tectonics, after a period of prolonged erosion of the underlying Mount Read Volcanics. The distinct variation in vertical and lateral extent of stratigraphic units within the Owen Group in the Proprietary Peak area suggests that widespread lithostratigraphic correlation of older Owen Group sedimentary units across Tasmania may not be feasible.     

用卫星热红外信息研究关联断层活动的时空变化--以南北地震构造带为例

断层活动不是孤立的,一条断层的活动可能影响其他断层,并引起这些断层的活动,这些相互作用的断层称为关联断层.本文利用卫星热红外信息以南北地震构造带为例,分析了关联断层活动的时空变化,所使用的信息是经过处理的地表亮温残差低频分量TLOW.结果表明,在一定时段内研究区一些断层间除地震活动表现出相互呼应关系外,其地表亮温残差低频分量TLOW曲线相似,相关系数高,说明热红外信息与地震信息共同反映一个地区断层的关联活动.此外,也存在单独由地表亮温残差低频分量TLOW相关表现断层关联活动的情形,即断层间无地震活动的呼应关系,但也存在TLOW曲线的相关性,同样显示关联断层的相互作用.对TLOW的时空过程分析表明,关联活动组合可随时间发生变化.例如,1988～1994年间红河断裂与澜沧-耿马断裂、金沙江断裂等构成关联活动组合,1994～1998年又与小金河断裂、安宁河-小江断裂构成关联活动组合,这样的时空变化过程可能是地壳应力场重新分配的反映.本文的研究结果证明,卫星热红外信息有望成为研究断层相互作用的一个新的独立物理量,并将对地震动力学和构造物理学的发展有重要意义.     

Normal fault growth influenced by basement fabrics: The importance of preferential nucleation from pre‐existing structures

Reactivation of pre‐existing intra‐basement structures can influence the evolution of rift basins, yet the detailed kinematic relationship between these structures and overlying rift‐related faults remains poorly understood. Understanding the kinematic as well as geometric relationship between intra‐basement structures and rift‐related fault networks is important, with the extension direction in many rifted provinces typically thought to lie normal to fault strike. We here investigate this problem using a borehole‐constrained, 3D seismic reflection dataset from the Taranaki Basin, offshore New Zealand. Excellent imaging of intra‐basement structures and a relatively weakly deformed, stratigraphically simple sedimentary cover allow us to: (a) identify a range of interaction styles between intra‐basement structures and overlying, Plio‐Pleistocene rift‐related normal faults; and (b) examine the cover fault kinematics associated with each interaction style. Some of the normal faults parallel and are physically connected to intra‐basement reflections, which are interpreted as mylonitic reverse faults formed during Mesozoic subduction and basement terrane accretion. These geometric relationships indicate pre‐existing intra‐basement structures locally controlled the position and attitude of Plio‐Pleistocene rift‐related normal faults. However, through detailed 3D kinematic analysis of selected normal faults, we show that: (a) normal faults only nucleated above intra‐basement structures that experienced late Miocene compressional reactivation, (b) despite playing an important role during subsequent rifting, intra‐basement structures have not been significantly extensionally reactivated, and (c) preferential nucleation and propagation of normal faults within late Miocene reverse faults and folds appears to be the key genetic relationship between contractionally reactivated intra‐basement structures and rift‐related normal faults. Our analysis shows that km‐scale, intra‐basement structures can control the nucleation and development of newly formed, rift‐related normal faults, most likely due to a local perturbation of the regional stress field. Because of this, simply inverting fault strike for causal extension direction may be incorrect, especially in provinces where pre‐existing, intra‐basement structures occur. We also show that a detailed kinematic analysis is key to deciphering the temporal as well as simply the spatial or geometric relationship between structures developed at multiple structural levels.     

Fossilisation of a silica diagenesis reaction front on the mid-Norwegian margin

The diagenetic transformation of biogenic silica from opal-A to opal-CT was recognised on seismic reflection data over an area of 78 × 10³ km² on the mid-Norwegian margin. The opal-A/CT diagenetic boundary appears as a positive, high amplitude reflection that generally cross-cuts the hosting stratigraphy. We demonstrate that it is not a sea bottom simulating reflection (BSR) and also that is not in thermal equilibrium with the present day isotherms. We present arguments that three styles of deformation associated with the opal-A/CT reflection – polygonal faulting, regional anticlines and synclines and differential compaction folding – indicate that the silica diagenesis reaction front is fossilised at a regional scale. Isochore maps demonstrate the degree of conformity between the opal-A/CT reflection and three seismic horizons of Late Miocene to Early Pliocene age that potentially represent the paleo-seabed when ‘fossilisation’ of the reaction front took place. The seismic interpretational criteria for recognition of a fossilised diagenetic front are evaluated and the results of our study are integrated with previous studies from other basins of the NE Atlantic in order to determine if the arrest of silica diagenesis was diachronous along this continental margin.