Looking for the hidden morphological signature of active faults in a Low Strain Rate region: clues from the eastern Kachchh region (NW India)

<p>The Kachchh region (NW India), a pericratonic rift basin delimited by E-W trending major thrust faults, is a Low Strain Rate region[PB1] . In this area, the tectonic forcing magnitude is stronger enough to trigger infrequent significant earthquakes but not enough to overprint the climatic forcing signature. As a consequence, the active faults sources of the largest seismic events are largely poorly known and their geomorphic signature is subdued. </p><p>Instrumental and paleoseismological evidence highlights that the eastern part of Kachchh experienced a significant number of seismic events such as the 1819-06-16 Allah Bund earthquake (Mw 7.8, also known as the Rann of Kutch earthquake), the 1956-07-21 Anjar earthquake (Mw 6.1), the 2001-01-26 Bhuj earthquake (Mw 7.6) and the 2006 events (Mw 5.0 and 5.6 earthquake occurred along Island Belt Fault and Gedi fault). </p><p>In this region, the unavailability of useful outcrop information due to a significant climatic overprinting of the fault’s morphological signatures hampers the detection and parametrization of actively deforming faults.</p><p>For this reason, in this ongoing work, we propose a multidisciplinary approach, aimed at detecting active geological structures and their related [PB2] surface deformation, which mainly consists of quantitative tectonic geomorphology and paleoseismological analyses and structural interpretation and modelling. Preliminary results are a morphotectonic evolution model and 3D fault model of the study area. Finally, we stress the concept that only a multidisciplinary approach could provide useful information to understand better the highly debated active tectonic framework of the study area.</p>

Elusive active faults in a low strain rate region (Sicily, Italy): hints from a multidisciplinary land-to-sea approach

<p>Low Strain Rate regions (LSRr), i.e., areas deforming at a 1 mm/yr rate or less, represent the most globally widespread areas that host important cities and high-vulnerable anthropogenic assets. The occurrence of infrequent but high-magnitude earthquakes suggests that identifying active structures in the LSRr is one of the primary challenges for both the scientific community and modern societies.</p><p>In such regions, one of the main issues in identifying active faults is the lack of useful outcrop data due to the anthropogenic and climate overprinting of the faults morphological signature. In this work, we propose a multidisciplinary approach designed to detect active geological structures and their related deformation. To test this approach, we selected as a natural laboratory an LSRr located between two major cities of Sicily (southern Italy).  This area lies into the northern sector of the Apennine-Maghrebian fold and thrust belt and its offshore prolongation.</p><p>Our approach consists of quantitative morphotectonic, offshore and onshore tectonostratigraphic and GNSS joint analyses. The main achieved results are 1) the first evidence of active, shallow-sited, NNW-trending transpressive blind faults that extends partially offshore for about 30 km, which décollement levels located at about 3 and 1 km depth, respectively and their 3D model, 2) a morphotectonic evolution model, that represents where and how these geologic structures drove the landscape evolution of the study area. Finally, we highlight that only a multidisciplinary approach could be useful for detecting and parametrising active faults in slow deforming areas that cross the coastline physical limit.</p>

Investigations of the late Quaternary morphotectonic evolution of the Balkan Peninsula East Part

The East Balkan Peninsula Area was a part from the Tethys Ocean until 72 000 000 years. The pre Maestrichtian geologic-tectonic pattern of cockle of the East Balkan Peninsula Area wasn’t built on the Europe Continental Massif. The modern East Balkan Peninsula Relief is forming during the Late Quaternary time. The East Balkan Peninsula Margin coincides with the border between the Bulgarian and Moesian Continental Microplates from the west and the Black Sea Oceanic Microplatte to the east. This border present the Neo Europe West Passive Continental Margin in the area of the last Tethys Oceanic Fragment – it Black Sea Oceanic Gulf.

New ideas about the Balkan peninsula East Part morphotectonics

The article introduces the results of the author’s new investigations about the origin, Quaternary morphotectonic evolution and the modern morphostructure of the Bulgarian Continental Microplate in the eastern part of Balkan Peninsula. The research was realized on a base of the contemporary Plate tectonic study principia by means of the morphostructural analysis apply. It was provided the principal relief building role of the regional mosaic pattern and the listric faulting in the Balkan Peninsula East Part.

Primary deformation phases during "magma-poor" rifting with special focus on the tectono-thermal evolution during the necking process

<p>Although so-called "magma-poor" rifted margins display a large variability on a local scale, they are characterized by a number of common primary features worldwide such as their first-order architecture (proximal, necking, hyperextended, exhumation and oceanic domains), their lithological evolution along dip and the deformation processes associated with their different rifting stages. In this contribution, we first emphasize the primary morphological and lithological architecture of magma-poor rifted margins and how they relate to specific deformation modes (pure shear thinning, mechanical necking, frictional extensional wedge, detachment faulting and seafloor spreading). Second, we focus on the necking stage of rifting, which corresponds to the first major thinning event (when the crust is thinned from its initial thickness to ~ 10 km). We display the range of possible topographic and thermal evolutions of "magma-poor" and "sedimentary starved" rift systems depending on their lithosphere rheology. Our two-dimensional thermo-mechanical numerical models suggest that extension of lithospheres where the crust and the mantle are mechanically decoupled by a weak lower crust results in a complex morphotectonic evolution of rift systems, with formation of temporary restricted sub-basins framed by uplifted parts of the future distal margin. Mechanical decoupling between the crust and the mantle controls also largely the thermal evolution of rift systems during the necking phase since for equivalent extension rates and initial geotherms: (i) weak/decoupled lithospheres have a higher geothermal gradient at the end of the necking phase than strong/coupled lithospheres; and (ii) weak/decoupled lithospheres show intense heating of the lower crust at the rift center and intense cooling of the crust on either side of the rift center, unlike strong/coupled lithospheres. These behaviors contrast with the continuous subsidence and cooling predicted by the commonly used depth-uniform thinning model.</p>