Ductile strain rate measurements document long-term strain localization in the continental crust

cited By 24; Quantification of strain localization in the continental lithosphere is hindered by the lack of reliable deformation rate measurements in the deep crust. Quartz-strain-rate-metry (QSR) is a convenient tool for performing such measurements once calibrated. We achieve this calibration by identifying the best piezometer-rheological law pairs that yield a strain rate in agreement with that measured on the same outcrop by a more direct method taken as a reference. When applied to two major continental strike-slip shear zones, the Ailao Shan-Red River (ASRR; southwest China) and the Karakorum (northwest India), the calibrated QSR highlights across-strike strain rate variations, from …