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Active Depths of Main Faults in the Ying-Qiong Basin Investigated by Multi-Scale Wavelet Decomposition of Bouguer Gravity Anomalies and Power Spectral Methods

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Abstract

The Ying-Qiong Basin is located on the northwestern margin of the South China Sea and at the junction of the South China Block and the Indochina Block. It is characterized by complex geological structures. The existing seismic data in the study area is sparse due to the lack of earthquake activities. Because of the limited source energy and poor coverage of seismic data, the knowledge of deep structures in the area, including the spatial distribution of deep faults, is incomplete. Contrarily, satellite gravity data cover the entire study area and can reveal the spatial distribution of faults. Based on the wavelet multi-scale decomposition method, the Bouguer gravity field in the Ying-Qiong Basin was decomposed and reconstructed to obtain the detailed images of the first- to sixth-order gravitational fields. By incorporating the known geological features, the gravitational field responses of the main faults in the Ying-Qiong Basin were identified in the detailed fields, and the power spectrum analysis yielded the depths of 1.4, 8, 15, 26.5, and 39 km for the average burial depths of the bottom surfaces from the first- to fifth-order detailed fields, respectively. The four main faults in the Yinggehai Basin all have a large active depth range: fault A (No.1) is between 5 and 39 km, fault B is between 26.5 and 39 km, and faults C and D are between 15 and 39 km. However, the depth of active faults in the Qiongdongnan Basin is relatively shallow, mainly between 8 and 26.5 km.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Wessel & Smith (u]https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt) for the free use of GMT software, by which most figures in this paper were produced. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41530963, 91858215 and 41906048), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 201964015) and the Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. MMRZZ201801).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Submarine Geosciences and Prospecting Techniques, Ministry of Education, and College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Long An, Wei Gong, Deyong Li, Junhui Xing, Chong Xu & Hao Zhang

  2. Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, 266237, China

    Long An, Wei Gong, Deyong Li, Junhui Xing, Chong Xu & Hao Zhang

  3. Shandong Zhengyuan Digital City Construction Co., Ltd., Yantai, 264670, China

    Chong Yu

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Correspondence to Wei Gong.

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An, L., Yu, C., Gong, W. et al. Active Depths of Main Faults in the Ying-Qiong Basin Investigated by Multi-Scale Wavelet Decomposition of Bouguer Gravity Anomalies and Power Spectral Methods. J. Ocean Univ. China 21, 1174–1188 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-022-4879-4

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