Earthquake-related soft-sediment deformation structures in Palaeogene on the continental shelf of the East China Sea

Abstract

Earthquake, as disastrous events in geological history, can be recorded as soft-sediment deformation. In the Palaeogene of the East China Sea shelf, the soft-sediment deformation related to earthquake event is recognized as seismic micro-fractures, micro-corrugated laminations, liquefied veins, ‘vibrated liquefied layers’, deformed cross laminations and convolute laminations, load structures, flame structures, brecciation, slump structures and seismodisconformity. There exists a lateral continuum, the wide spatial distribution and the local vertical continuous sequences of seismites including slump, liquefaction and brecciation. In the Palaeogene of East China Sea shelf, where typical soft-sediment deformation structures were developed, clastic deposits of tidal-flat, delta and river facies are the main background deposits of Middle-Upper Eocene Pinghu Formation and Oligocene Huagang Formation. This succession also records diagnostic marks of event deposits and basinal tectonic activities in the form of seismites.

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