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Characteristic slip for five great earthquakes along the Fuyun fault in China

Nature Geoscience volume 4, pages 389–392 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The seismic hazard associated with an individual fault can be assessed from the distributions of slip and recurrence times of earthquakes. However, seismic cycle models1 that aim to predict rupture lengths and fault displacements of successive earthquakes on one fault remain poorly validated. It is therefore unknown whether individual fault segments rupture independently, producing earthquakes with a diverse range of magnitudes and recurrence times, or slip by characteristic amounts, with characteristic magnitudes. Here we use high-resolution satellite data to document the horizontal offsets of stream channels and terraces created by strike-slip motion on the Fuyun fault, Xinjiang, China, during five historical earthquakes. We find that the Ms 7.9 11 August 1931 earthquake produced a surface rupture with a length of 160 km, dispersed over three different fault segments. The 290 measured stream channel and terrace offsets record an average slip of 6.3 m. We use the degree of preservation of geomorphological markers to assign relative ages to individual fault offsets and identify at least four distinct older earthquakes. We find that these older earthquakes also produced fault offsets with a similar distribution to the 1931 earthquake. As the slip distributions during five successive earthquakes were so similar, we conclude that ruptures on the Fuyun fault obey a characteristic slip model.

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Figure 1: Rupture map and offset measurements.
Figure 2: Successive reconstructions of offset channels at site 4D (location on Fig. 1).
Figure 3: Direct slip distribution modelling.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are extended to the CNES, which gave us access to imagery in the framework of the Pleiade preparation program. We thank R. Arrowsmith and G. Biasi for constructive reviews. This is IPGP contribution 3157, and EOS contribution 20.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ. Paris Diderot, UMR 7154 CNRS, 1 rue Jussieu, F-75005 Paris, France

    Y. Klinger, M. Etchebes & C. Narteau

  2. EOS, Nanyang Technological University, N2-01A-09, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

    P. Tapponnier

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  1. Y. Klinger
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Contributions

M. E. carefully mapped offset markers along the fault. C.N. took care of much of the statistical modelling effort. They, and all other authors, equally participated in the completion of the work.

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Correspondence to Y. Klinger.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Klinger, Y., Etchebes, M., Tapponnier, P. et al. Characteristic slip for five great earthquakes along the Fuyun fault in China. Nature Geosci 4, 389–392 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1158

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