On the faults of western Hexi Corridor and its nearby regions, northwestern China:Thrust faults and strike-slip faults of Late Cenozoic

Introduction Hexi Corridor, a corridor extended over 1 000 km and with a strike of WNW-ESE, is locatedbetween Alxa uplift and northern Qilianshan Caledonian folding belt of northern Qinghai-Xizang(Tibet) Plateau (Figure 1). In the paper, we will discuss the regions between Altun fault and Yu-mushan of the western Hexi Corridor, where the climate is arid, which results in sparse vegetation,but abundant oil and gas resource, and being one of the most important petroleum industry base…

On the faults of western Hexi Corridor and its nearby regions, northwestern China: Thrust faults and strike-slip faults of Late Cenozoic

The structural analysis based on the explanation of seismic profiles indicates that a lot of thrust faults and strike-slip faults of Late Cenozoic occur in western Hexi Corridor and its nearby regions. They can be divided into two types. One is thrust faults dipping southwards and extending NWwards, which was mainly correlated with the thrusting of northern Qilianshan and located at the NE margin of Qilianshan and the southwestern Hexi Corridor, the other is thrust faults and strike-slip faults that were related to the strike-slipping of Altun fault and located mainly at the regions of Hongliuxia, Kuantaishan, and Helishan that are close to the Altun fault. All these faults, which were related to the remote effects of collision between the two continents of India and Tibet during the Late Eocene and later, started to develop since the Late Tertiary and presented the features of violent thrust or strike-slip movement in Quaternary. Many of them are still active up to now and thus belong to the active faults that are the potential inducement of earthquakes in the Hexi Corridor. Moreover, a lot of intense structural deformation and many morphology phenomena such as tectonic terrace and river offset were formed under the control of these faults in Quaternary.