APPLICATION OF TOPOGRAPHIC SLOPE AND ELEVATION VARIATION COEFFICIENT IN IDENTIFYING THE MOTUO ACTIVE FAULT ZONE

The eastern Himalaya syntaxis is located at the southeastern end of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and is the area where the Eurasian plate collides and converges with the Indian plate. The Namjabawa is the highest peak in the eastern section of the Himalayas, and the Yarlung Zangbo River gorge is around the Namjabawa Peak. The NE-striking Aniqiao Fault with right-lateral strike-slip is the eastern boundary fault of the Namjabawa syntaxis. Motuo Fault is in the east of and parallel to the Aniqiao Fault, distributing along the valley of the Yarlung Zangbo River. The section of Yarlung Zangbo River valley at the eastern side of the Namjabawa area is located in the southern foothills of the Himalayas and belongs to the subtropical humid climate zone with dense tropical rainforest vegetation. Dense vegetation, large terrain elevation difference, strong endogenetic and exogenic forces, and abundant valley deposition bring enormous difficulty to the research on active faults in this area.Since 1990s, surface morphology can be quantitatively expressed by digital elevation models as the rapid development of remote sensing technology. Geomorphic types and their characteristics can be quantified by geomorphological parameters which are extracted from DEM data, describing geomorphologic evolution and tectonic activity. But to date, researches based on quantitative geomorphic parameters are mainly focus on the differential uplift of regional blocks. In the study and mapping of active faults, surface traces of active faults are acquired by visual interpretation of remote sensing images. It has not been reported to identify the location of active faults via the change of quantitative geomorphic parameters. The distribution map of topographic elevation variation coefficient is suitable to reflect the regional erosion cutting and topographic relief, and the places with higher topographic elevation variation coefficient are more strongly eroded. In this paper, we attempt to identify the active faults and explore their distribution in the Yarlung Zangbo Gorge in the east of the Namjabawa Peak based on the application of two quantitative geomorphic parameters, namely, the topographic slope and the elevation variation coefficient.Using the DEM data of 30m resolution, two quantitative geomorphic parameters of topographic slope and elevation variation coefficient in Namjabawa and its surrounding areas were obtained on the ArcGIS software platform. On the topographic slope distribution map, the slope of the eastern and western banks of the Yarlung Zangbo River near Motuo is steep with a slope angle of more than 30°. Under the background of steep terrain, there are gentle slope belts of 5°~25° distributing intermittently and NE-striking. On the distribution map of topographic elevation variation coefficient, the elevation variation coefficient of the Yarlung Zangbo River near Motuo is greater than 0.9. On the background of the high topographic fluctuation area, it develops gently topographic undulating belts with elevation variation coefficient of 0.2~0.9. The belts are intermittently distributed and northeastern trending. Through the field geological and geomorphological investigation and trench excavation, it is found that the abnormal strips of the above-mentioned geomorphological parameters are the locations where the active faults pass. The above results show that the quantitative analysis of the topographic slope and the coefficient of variation of elevation can help us find active faults in areas with large terrain slope, serious vegetation coverage and high denudation intensity.