Spatiotemporal Clustering of Large Earthquakes Along the Central-Eastern Sections of the Altyn Tagh Fault, China,Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

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Spatiotemporal Clustering of Large Earthquakes Along the Central-Eastern Sections of the Altyn Tagh Fault, China
Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth ( IF 3.9 ) Pub Date : 2024-12-05 , DOI: 10.1029/2024jb028912
Nicolás Pinzon, Yann Klinger, Xiwei Xu, Paul Tapponnier, Jing Liu-Zeng, Jerome Van Der Woerd, Kang Li, Mingxing Gao

The understanding of the spatial-temporal distribution of past earthquakes is essential to assess the event recurrence behavior and to estimate the size of potential earthquakes along active strike-slip fault systems. However, the scarcity of paleoseismic data remains a major hurdle in this endeavor. This is the case of the longest strike-slip fault in Asia, the Altyn Tagh Fault (ATF). We documented six very likely large earthquakes that potentially ruptured the Aksay section of the ATF. Employing a Bayesian approach, we present modeled date ranges of 6339–5220 BC, 5296–4563 BC, 3026–2677 BC, 1324–808 BC, 314–632 AD, and 915–1300 AD. The mean recurrence time is 1,329 ± 588 years with a coefficient of variation (COV) of ∼0.44. In the same fault section, 90 horizontal offsets record an average coseismic slip of 5.1 ± 1.4 m for the last event and suggest four older earthquakes plausibly with a similar slip distribution. Although at the local-scale the COV indicates quasi-periodic rupture behavior, the individual interevent times exhibit significant irregularity, a pattern also observed in adjacent fault sections (Xorxoli, Annanba and Tashi sections). We found that such irregularities are a natural consequence of long-term fault interactions, which allow for synchronized ruptures along the northern and southern strands of the central-eastern ATF. Our rupture model highlights bursty periods of seismic activity with mean interevent times of 475 ± 108 years separated by long-lull periods of 1.1–1.6 kyr. Based on this temporal organization and considering the 401-year elapsed time since the most recent event on the Xorxoli section, there exists a possibility of a forthcoming large earthquake occurring within the next century.

更新日期：2024-12-06

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