Using historical remote sensing images for detailed tectonic geomorphological interpretation in the study of active faults: Application to the Xiaojiang fault case study

Abstract

The northern section of the Xiaojiang fault is the most active section in the Xiaojiang Fault Zone, and a detailed interpretation of this fault is highly important. In this work, KeyHole-4B images and Landsat 8 images of the northern section of the Xiaojiang fault were collected, and remote sensing interpretation and tectonic geomorphological analysis of the northern section of the Xiaojiang fault were carried out to obtain a more detailed fault distribution. The results reveal that the northern section of the Xiaojiang fault is a group of faults that are subparallel to each other with a space of 2-4 km. The fault is located along the Jinshajiang Valley and the Xiaojiang Valley. At the same time, we counted the large-scale left-lateral dislocations of the gullies and ridges. Combined with the results of previous studies, the long-term average slip rate of the northern section of the Xiaojiang fault is 6.2 ± 1.1 mm/a since the late Middle Pleistocene, 11.4 ± 2.8 mm/a since the middle of the late Pleistocene, and 8.0 ± 2.0 mm/a since the middle and late Pleistocene. The high slip rate in the northern section of the Xiaojiang fault represents the response of the local strain of the central Yunnan subblock, which rotates clockwise along the boundary fault. This finding is consistent with the pattern of northwards and north-east wards thrusting of the Indian plate, leading to eastwards extrusion and the escape of material from the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.

Keywords

Historical remote sensing image / Remote sensing interpretation / Xiaojiang fault / Active fault

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xingao Li: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Software, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Zhongtai He: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Long Guo: Writing - original draft, Visualization, Software, Resources. Linlin Li: Writing - original draft, Supervision, Software, Resources, Conceptualization.

Author agreement and acknowledgment

I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.

This work is supported by grants from the National Science and Technology Basic Resources Investigation Program of China [Grant Number 2021FY100104], the Seismogenic Structure Ex-ploration of Large Earthuqake [Grant Number DZ5WLD202301], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number 41872227] and a research grant from the National Institute of Natural Hazards, Ministry of Emergency Management of China [Grant Number ZDJ2019-21].

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

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