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Paleoseismic records of large earthquakes on the cross-basin fault in the Ganyanchi pull-apart basin, Haiyuan fault, northeastern Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Field observations and analog models show that cross-basin faults play a key role in the evolution of pull-apart basins and dominate the distribution of earthquake rupture in basin areas. We studied the long-term history of large earthquakes on a cross-basin fault to reveal its behavior in response to propagating earthquake rupture and gain insight into the evolution of the pull-apart basin. A number of pull-apart basins have developed along the Haiyuan fault in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, the largest being the Ganyanchi pull-apart basin. The surface rupture associated with the 1920 M 8.5 earthquake shows that a cross-basin fault developed in the basin and that the basin is now going through the late stage of its evolution. We excavated two trenches and drilled four cores across the cross-basin fault in the basin and found abundant evidence of paleoseismic events. Seven events were identified and 14C-dated. The two youngest events are associated with the historical records of 1092 AD and 1920 AD, respectively. The paleoseismic sequence shows the recurrence of earthquakes characterized by earthquake clusters alternating with a single event. Comparing these with previous paleoseismic results, all the major earthquake events seem to be associated with cascade events that ruptured multi-fault segments, suggesting that only an earthquake of this scale (likely M > 8) can produce obvious surface rupture along the cross-basin fault. We propose that the fault has a long tectonic history, with a series of cascade rupture events that could play an important part in the evolution of the pull-apart basin.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Zhang Peizhen and Prof. Yin Gongming from the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, for their helpful suggestions for our research. We would also like to thank Prof. Chai Chizhang from the Earthquake Administration of Ningxia Province and Liu Gang from the Earthquake Administration of Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province, for their help and support during our fieldwork. We thank David A. Ferrill and an anonymous reviewer for their comments which helped improve our manuscript. This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41272214) and the Special Foundation of the China Earthquake Administration (Grant No. 200808016).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Active Tectonics and Volcano, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yanbao Li, Yongkang Ran, Hu Wang & Fuyao Wu

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  1. Yanbao Li
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  2. Yongkang Ran
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  3. Hu Wang
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Correspondence to Yongkang Ran.

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Li, Y., Ran, Y., Wang, H. et al. Paleoseismic records of large earthquakes on the cross-basin fault in the Ganyanchi pull-apart basin, Haiyuan fault, northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Nat Hazards 71, 1695–1713 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0983-5

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