Abstract
It is commonly assumed a thrust has a constant slip and uplifting rate along strike, however, this simplified model cannot always be consistent with field observations. The along strike slip patterns with variable offsets and rates contain plenty of information about the characteristics of the faulting behavior and its relationship with adjacent faults. The east Qilian Shan, located at the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, provides us an excellent opportunity to study the faulting behavior in a thrust-bounded range area. Besides the previously reported slip rates of the N-W trending tectonics across the region, we augmented the data by surveying the Fengle fault (FF), one of the north bounding thrusts of the Yongchangnan Shan. Another north bounding fault is the Kangningqiao Fault (KNF), east of the FF. Based on the vertical offsets and rates along the fault, we constructed the slip pattern along strike. The results show the vertical slip rate of the FF ranges from 0.7 ± 0.1 mm/a to 2.8 ± 1.3 mm/a across three surveyed sites. The slip rate decreases from the east to the west. The FF and KNF might be inferred as two segments of a single segmented thrust controlling the uplift of the Yongchangnan Shan. By comparing the uplift onsets in the study region, we discuss the northeastward propagated deformation along the northeastern margin of the Tibet plateau.
Highlights
It is a common way to use deformed geomorphic features to constrain the slip rate of an active fault
At least 11 control points positioned by realtime kinematic (RTK) GPS were set evenly across the target area before the UAV survey
We firstly reported the two directly dated sites, calculated the regional diffusion constant
Summary
It is a common way to use deformed geomorphic features to constrain the slip rate of an active fault. In most cases, to simplify the model, it is often assumed that a single fault has a constant slip rate along the whole strike. The vertical slip rates distribution along a thrust fault contains important information about the evolution of the fault (Nicol et al, 2005; Mueller, 2017) and the relationships between fault segments (e.g., Lei et al, 2020). A triangular-shaped displacement-along-strike-distance distribution pattern is often interpreted as a result of lateral propagation (Nicol et al, 2005) or Variable Rates Along a Thrust the linkage of the originally isolated segments (Walsh and Watterson, 1987; Dawers et al, 1993; Schlische et al, 1996). The over simplified model of uniformly distributed vertical rate may overlook such above information
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