Active tectonics in southern Xinjiang, China: Analysis of terrace riser and normal fault scarp degradation along the Hotan-Qira fault system
- Inst. de Physique du globe de Paris, Paris (France)
The northern piedmont of the western Kunlun mountains (Xinjiang, China) is marked at its easternmost extremity, south of the Hotan-Qira oases, by a set of normal faults trending N50E for nearly 70 km. Conspicuous on Landsat and SPOT images, these faults follow the southeastern border of a deep flexural basin and may be related to the subsidence of the Tarim platform loaded by the western Kunlun northward overthrust. The Hotan-Qira normal fault system vertically offsets the piedmont slope by 70 m. Highest fault scarps reach 20 m and often display evidence for recent reactivations about 2 m high. Successive stream entrenchments in uplifted footwallls have formed inset terraces. We have leveled topographic profiles across fault scarps and transverse abandoned terrace risers. The state of degradation of each terrace edge has been characterized by a degradation coefficient tau, derived by comparison with analytical erosion models. Edges of highest abandoned terraces yield a degradation coefficient of 33 +/- 4 sq.m. Profiles of cumulative fault scarps have been analyzed in a similar way using synthetic profiles generated with a simple incremental fault scarp model.
- Research Organization:
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
- OSTI ID:
- 79462
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 98, Issue B12; Other Information: PBD: Dec 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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