Plate motion, crustal deformation, and earthquake occurrence processes in the northwest Sunda Arc, which includes the Indo-Burmese wedge (IBW) in the forearc and the Sagaing fault in the backarc, are very poorly constrained. Plate reconstruction models and geological structures in the region suggest that subduction in the IBW occurred in the geological past, but whether it is still active and how the plate motion between the India and Sunda plates is partitioned between motion in the IBW and Sagaing fault is largely unknown. Recent GPS measurements of crustal deformation and available long-term rates of motion across the Sagaing fault suggest that ~20 ± 3 mm/yr of the relative plate motion of ~36 mm/yr between the India and Sunda plates is accommodated at the Sagaing fault through dextral strike-slip motion. We report results from a dense GPS network in the IBW that has operated since 2004. Our analysis of these measurements and the seismicity of the IBW suggest that the steeply dipping Churachandpur-Mao fault in the IBW accommodates the remaining motion of ~18 ± 2 mm/yr between the India and Sunda plates through dextral strike-slip motion, and this motion occurs predominantly through velocity strengthening frictional behavior, i.e., aseismic slip. The aseismic motion on this plate boundary fault signifi cantly lowers the seismic hazard due to major and great interplate earthquakes along this plate boundary.
We report GPS measurements of crustal deformation across the Kashmir Himalaya. We combined these results with the published results of GPS measurements from the Karakoram fault system and suggest that in the Kashmir Himalaya, the motion between the southern Tibet and India plate is oblique with respect to the structural trend. We estimated this almost north-south oblique motion to be 17 ± 2 mm/yr, which is partitioned between dextral motion of 5 ± 2 mm/yr on the Karakoram fault system and oblique motion of 13.6 ± 1 mm/yr with an azimuth of N198°E in the northwest-southeast trending Kashmir Himalayan frontal arc. Thus, the partitioning of the India-Southern Tibet oblique motion is partial in the Kashmir Himalayan frontal arc. However, in the neighboring Nepal Himalaya, there is no partitioning; the entire India-Southern Tibet motion of 19-20 mm/yr is arc normal and is accommodated entirely in the Himalayan frontal arc. The convergence rate in the Kashmir frontal Himalaya is about 25% less than that in the Nepal Himalayan region. However, here the Karakoram fault system accommodates about 20% of the southern Tibet and Indian plate convergence and marks the northern extent of the NW Himalayan arc sliver. The Kaurik Chango rift, a north-south oriented seismically active cross-wedge transtensional fault appears to divide the sliver in two parts causing varying translatory motion on the Karakoram fault on either side of the Kaurik Chango rift.
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