Deng Qi-dong

Active fault survey on the Tanlu fault zone in Laizhou Bay

Shallow-depth acoustic reflection profiling survey has been conducted on the Tanlu fault zone in Laizhou Bay. It is found that the Tanlu fault zone is obviously active during the late Quaternary and it is still the dominating structure in this region. The Tanlu fault zone consists of two branches. The KL3 fault of the western branch is composed of several high angle normal faults which had been active during the period from the the latest Pleistocene to early Holocene, dissected by a series of northeast or approximate east-west trending fault which leaped sediment of the late Pleistocene. The Longkou fault of the eastern branch consists of two right-laterally stepped segments. Late Quaternary offsets and growth strata developed along the Tanlu fault zone verify that the fault zone retained active in the latest Pleistocene to the early Holocene. The Anqiu-Juxian fault that passes through the middle of Shandong and corresponds to the Longkou fault is composed of a series of right-laterally stepped segments. The active faults along the eastern branch of the Tanlu fault zone from the Laizhou bay to the north of Anqiu make up a dextral simple shear deformation zone which is characterized by right-lateral strike-slip movement with dip-slip component during the late Quaternary.

Discussion of rupture mechanisms on the seismogenic fault of the 2008 M s 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake

The May 12, 2008, Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake was the outcome of a recent movement of an active intra-continental thrust fault zone. The seismogenic fault of this earthquake underwent oblique-slip faulting along the central fault and pure thrust faulting along the range-front fault of the Longmenshan fault zone. The former had a steep dip and large vertical displacement, and the latter had a gentle dip and little vertical displacement. The fault zone consisted of compressive double fault ramps rupturing with right-lateral strike-slip components resulting from strain partitioning of a deep oblique slip fault in the brittle zone of the upper crust. The kinematic pattern and rupture mechanisms are complex for the seismogenic fault, as indicated by the geometric pattern of its surface ruptures, the coseismic displacement distribution and focal mechanisms of the main shock and aftershocks. As a tear fault, the NW-trending, left-lateral, strike-slip Xiaoyudong fault zone has accommodated NE-trending displacements with different shortening amounts. However, because of intense compression on the southwestern segment of the seismogenic fault, the left-lateral, strike-slip Xiaoyudong fault also carries a clear compression component. Normal faulting with a strike-slip component controls the formation of a fault-trough along the central fault, which is characterized by thrusting with a strike-slip component and strike-slip with thrusting. The fault-troughs are the product of the interaction of slip and gravity on the seismogenic fault under specific geological and geomorphic conditions. Gravitational force exaggerated the vertical component of fault displacement, which by no means represents the actual maximum vertical displacement of the seismogenic fault.

Surface rupture zone of the 1303 Hongtong M=8 earthquake, Shanxi Province

Based on the latest displacement of Huoshan piedmont fault, Mianshan west-side fault and Taigu fault obtained from the beginning of 1990’s up to the present, the characteristics of distribution and displacement of surface rupture zone of the 1303 Hongtong M=8 earthquake, Shanxi Province are synthesized and discussed in the paper. If Taigu fault, Mianshan west-side fault and Huoshan piedmont fault were contemporarily active during the 1303 Hongtong M=8 earthquake, the surface rupture zone would be 160 km long and could be divided into 3 segments, that is, the 50-km-long Huoshan piedmont fault segment, 35-km-long Mianshan west-side fault segment and 70-km-long Taigu fault segment, respectively. Among them, there exist 4 km and 8 km step regions. The surface rupture zone exhibits right-lateral features. The displacements of northern and central segments are respectively 6–7 m and the southern segment has the maximum displacement of 10 m. The single basin-boundary fault of Shanxi fault-depression system usually corresponds to M≈7 earthquake, while this great earthquake (M=8) broke through the obstacle between two basins. It shows that the surface rupture scale of great earthquake is changeable.