Revisiting Late Quaternary Slip‐rate along the Maqu Segment of the Eastern Kunlun Fault, Northeast Tibet

Abstract

The Late Quaternary slip rate along the Maqu segment of the eastern Kunlun Fault was estimated using a combination of high‐resolution remote sensing imagery interpretation, field observations and differential Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements of offset river terraces, and 14C dating of snail shells collected from offset risers. The results show that the left‐slip rate along the segment is 3–5 mm/a, and that the vertical slip rate is 0.3–0.5 mm/a. Both the horizontal and vertical slips on the segment remain consistent over a distance of ∼100 km. It means that no slip gradient as previously suggested occurred along the Maqu segment, and which thus might behave as an independent seismogenic fault. Judging from multiple relationships among young terrace offsets, we infer that co‐seismic surface rupture produced by a characteristic earthquake with a magnitude of Ms7.0–7.5 on the Maqu fault could generate a horizontal slip of 4.5–5 m and a vertical slip of 0.45–0.5 m, with a corresponding ratio (Dh/Dv) of about 9. Two surface rupture events must have occurred over the past 3300 years, the latest one possibly between 1485 cal BP and 1730 cal BP.

10Be Exposure Ages Obtained From Quaternary Glacial Landforms on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Surrounding Area

“…1). (Shi Yafeng et al, 1999a;Kind et al, 2002;Zheng Du and Yao Tandong, 2004;Zhou et al, 2005;Li et al, 2016a;Tang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016). The Tibetan Plateau stretches from the Himalayan Mountains in the south to the Kunlun, Altun and Qilian Mountains in the north and from the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush to the west to the western part of the Qinling Mountains and the Loess Plateau to the east and northeast.…”