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Active shortening within the Himalayan orogenic wedge implied by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 711–716 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Models of Himalayan neotectonics generally attribute active mountain building to slip on the Himalayan Sole Thrust, also termed the Main Himalayan Thrust, which accommodates underthrusting of the Indian Plate beneath Tibet. However, the geometry of the Himalayan Sole Thrust and thus how slip along it causes uplift of the High Himalaya are unclear. We show that the geodetic record of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake sequence significantly clarifies the architecture of the Himalayan Sole Thrust and suggests the need for revision of the canonical view of how the Himalaya grow. Inversion of Gorkha surface deformation reveals that the Himalayan Sole Thrust extends as a planar gently dipping fault surface at least 20–30 km north of the topographic front of the High Himalaya. This geometry implies that building of the high range cannot be attributed solely to slip along the Himalayan Sole Thrust over a steep ramp; instead, shortening within the Himalayan wedge is required to support the topography and maintain rapid rock uplift. Indeed, the earthquake sequence may have included a moderate rupture (Mw 6.9) on an out-of-sequence thrust fault at the foot of the High Himalaya. Such internal deformation is an expected response to sustained, focused rapid erosion, and may be common to most compressional orogens.

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Figure 1: Geologic and geomorphic context of the Gorkha earthquake sequence.
Figure 2: Swath profile cross-section (N18° E) of plausible structural geometries in relation to PT 2 and associated metrics of rock-uplift rate patterns.
Figure 3: Comparative slip distribution and misfit for different models.
Figure 4: Slip distribution and misfit for preferred model.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Thiede for sharing his compilation of thermochronometric data in the Himalaya, J.-P. Avouac for providing pre-event microseismic hypocentres in Nepal (included in Supplementary Information), E. Lindsey and colleagues for making ALOS-2 displacements available at http://topex.ucsd.edu/nepal, and M. Zoldak for assistance with GIS data management. Sentinel-1A interferograms used in our analysis are derived from Copernicus data, subject to ESA use and distribution conditions. M. S. is supported by National Science Foundation grant EAR-1357079.

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  1. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA

    Kelin X. Whipple, Manoochehr Shirzaei, Kip V. Hodges & J. Ramon Arrowsmith

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K.X.W. initiated the analysis and prepared context figures. M.S. performed the inversions and prepared figures displaying results. All authors contributed to interpretation and writing.

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Correspondence to Kelin X. Whipple.

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Whipple, K., Shirzaei, M., Hodges, K. et al. Active shortening within the Himalayan orogenic wedge implied by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. Nature Geosci 9, 711–716 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2797

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