Abstract
The North China Craton (NCC) began to disintegrate completely in the Yanshan Movement period (Jurassic-Cretaceous) forming a great number of NE, NEN, NW and WNW trending faults. Such fault systems have played an important role in the development of tectonics and seismicity in the Craton area. There has been a big change of stress field since the Pliocene, from predominantly normal faulting to predominantly strike-slip faulting. The NCC is an area with high seismicity. The recent seismicity is obviously controlled by the tectonic framework derived from Craton disintegration. Six strong earthquakes with M > 8.0 in this area have occurred in the past two thousand years. Many strong earthquakes in the NCC area are mainly caused by preexisting faults that move horizontally forming pull-apart basins.
Measuring the ‘Great Unconformity’ on the North China Craton using new detrital zircon age data