Abstract
Relating the distributed strain and often complicated styles of faulting in deforming continental lithosphere to relative motion of the oceanic plates has proven difficult. A new method to study the kinematics of continental deformation in Asia has been used by A. J. Haines and W. E. Holt, Geology and Geophysics Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington, New Zealand.Moment tensor elements from large and moderate‐sized earthquakes in Asia over the last 85 years [Molnar and Deng, 1984; Molnar and Lyon‐Caen, 1989; Ekstrom and England, 1989; W. E. Holt et al., unpublished manuscript, 1990] have been used to determine strain rates, relative velocities, and relative rotations within the deforming regions of Eastern Tibet, Western Sichuan, and Yunnan. That is, velocities and rotations within a deforming zone can be uniquely determined in a given reference frame if the strains are known everywhere within that zone [Haines, 1982]
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