Post-collisional Geological Structures off Gongliao District in Northern Taiwan

Abstract

The offshore area of northern Taiwan is subject to post-collisional collapse and under an extensional regime. Because of the change from a compressional environment to an extensional environment, a series of normal fault structures has occurred. The reverse faults in the Gongliao area of Taiwan, include the Longdong Fault, Wentzukeng Fault, Aodi Fault, and Fangjiao Faul, are distributed from inland to the coastline. However, their prolongations to the offshore area are unknown. In order to understand the possible fault extension to the offshore area and the possible fault activity, we conducted Sparker reflection seismic surveys in the offshore area of Gongliao. The Sparker seismic system is suitable for shallow water surveys and can provide high-resolution shallow structures. To understand the geological structures in our study area, sequence stratigraphy, seismic facies and faults identification are used to analyze our seismic profiles. According to the sequence stratigraphy, the transgressive surface, the last glacial maximum (LGM) unconformity, and last maximum flooding surface can be identified. In addition, the sand wave base surface, syn-rift unconformity and the acoustic basement are defined. We have identified 5 normal faults (i.e. Fa, Fb, Fc, Fd and Fe) in the prolongation of the onshore faults. All the identified faults cut through the basement and caused large offsets, forming half-graben basins. For the activity of these faults, the strata in the half-graben basin A formed by Fault a, is tilted, which was probably caused by the continuous growth of the fault. The strata in the half-graben basin B formed by Faults b and c, are inclined below the LGM unconformity, but the strata above the LGM unconformity are relatively flat. In contrast, only the sediments in the upper part of the half-graben basin B show the characteristics of sequence stratigraphy, which means the sediments deposit controlled by sea level change. In summary, we infer that the faults b and c were active before the LGM and relatively stable recently. Faults d and are covered by thick sediment layers, indicating early structures not active at all.