Search results for "Strike-slip"
showing 10 items of 19 documents
Zipper junctions: A new approach to the intersections of conjugate strike-slip faults
2016
Intersecting pairs of simultaneously active faults with opposing slip sense present geometrical and kinematic problems. Such faults rarely offset each other but usually merge into a single fault, even when they have displacements of many kilometers. The space problems involved are solved by lengthening the merged fault (zippering up the conjugate faults) or splitting it (unzippering). This process can operate in thrust, normal, and strike-slip fault settings. Examples of conjugate pairs of large-scale strike-slip faults that may have zippered up include the Garlock and San Andreas faults in California (USA), the North and East Anatolian faults (Turkey), the Karakoram and Altyn Tagh faults (…
Late Palaeozoic to Mesozoic kinematic history of the Talas-Ferghana strike-slip Fault (Kyrgyz West Tianshan) as revealed by 40Ar/39Ar dating of syn-k…
2013
International audience; The NW-trending Talas-Ferghana Fault (TFF) in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, is one of the largest intracontinental strike-slip faults in the world. It extends over a distance of more than 2000 km from southern Tourghai to western Tarim and exhibits a maximum dextral offset of ∼200 km during the late Palaeozoic to present. The history of the fault provides important insights for the understanding of the evolution of southern Central Asia but remains poorly constrained due to lack of reliable geochronological data. We present new Ar-Ar ages and structural data from the Kyrgyz West Tianshan, that elucidate the kinematic history of the TFF in the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic. 40A…
Evidence of positive tectonic inversion in the north-central sector of the Sicily Channel (Central Mediterranean)
2016
In order to unravel the tectonic evolution of the north-central sector of the Sicily Channel (Central Mediterranean), a seismo-stratigraphic analysis of single- and multi-channel seismic reflection profiles has been carried out. This allowed to identify, between 20 and 50 km offshore the central-southern coast of Sicily, a ~80-km-long deformation belt, characterized by a set of WNW–ESE to NW–SE fault segments showing a poly-phasic activity. Within this belt, we observed: i) Miocene normal faults reactivated during Zanclean–Piacenzian time by dextral strike-slip motion, as a consequence of the Africa–Europe convergence; ii) releasing and restraining bend geometries forming well-developed pul…
A strike-slip core complex from the Najd fault system, Arabian shield
2014
Metamorphic core complexes are usually thought to be associated with regional crustal extension and crustal thinning, where deep crustal material is exhumed along gently dipping normal shear zones oblique to the regional extension direction. We present a new mechanism whereby metamorphic core complexes can be exhumed along crustal-scale strike-slip fault systems that accommodated crustal shortening. The Qazaz metamorphic dome in Saudi Arabia was exhumed along a gently dipping jog in a crustal-scale vertical strike-slip fault zone that caused more than 25 km of exhumation of lower crustal rocks by 30 km of lateral motion. Subsequently, the complex was transected by a branch of the strike-sli…
Complex vein systems as a data source in tectonics: An example from the Ugab Valley, NW Namibia
2014
Abstract Neoproterozoic metaturbidites in the Lower Ugab Domain, Namibia, contain a complex network of four sets of quartz-calcite veins, overprinted by km-scale folds associated with four regional foliations. The veins formed by fluid overpressure predating the main deformation. Deformation structures developed at the junction of two mobile belts during the assembly of Gondwana, the NS Kaoko Belt, and the EW trending Damara Belt. Km-scale NS trending folds were initiated during EW constriction in the Kaoko Belt, while their further development and all subsequent events are related to constriction in the EW-Damara Belt, with coeval sinistral strike slip in the Kaoko Belt. Deformation of the…
Multi-temporal tectonic evolution of Capo Granitola and Sciacca foreland transcurrent faults (Sicily channel)
2019
Highlights • Seismic reflection profiles evidence tectonic inversion and active strike-slip faults offshore SW Sicily foreland • Pliocene-Quaternary transpressional inversion of Late Miocene extensional basins • Transpressional fold growth rates were high in Latest Miocene-Pliocene and decreased during Quaternary Joint analysis of high-penetration multi-channel and high-resolution single-channel seismic reflection profiles, calibrated by deep well boreholes, allowed a detailed reconstruction of the Late Miocene to Recent tectonic history of the Capo Granitola and Sciacca fault systems offshore southwestern Sicily. These two fault arrays are part of a regional system of transcurrent faults t…
Active tectonics in the Calabrian Arc: Insights from the Late Miocene to Recent structural evolution of the Squillace Basin (offshore eastern Calabri…
2023
The Calabrian Arc represents one of the most active sectors of the upper plate of the Tyrrhenian-Ionian subduction system. This research aims to reconstruct the evolution of the Squillace Basin (Ionian offshore of the Calabrian Arc) from the Late Miocene to Recent times and recognise active shallow and deep structures using a multiscale approach. The latter is based on interpreting high-penetration and high-resolution seismic reflection profiles, calibrated with well-log data coupled with bathymetric data and the distribution of instrumental earthquakes. Data highlight three steps in the evolution of the Squillace Basin. A Late Miocene extensional event led to the formation of WNW-ESE orien…
The Mulgandinnah Shear Zone; an Archean crustal scale strike-slip zone, eastern Pilbara, Western Australia
1998
Abstract A large part of the deformation in the Archean Pilbara granitoid-greenstone terrain is localized in relatively narrow shear zones. The Mulgandinnah shear zone (MSZ) is a major one of these, with a width up to 8 km, that can be followed for over 70 km along strike in the Shaw Batholith in the eastern Pilbara. It forms part of the Mulgandinnah Lineament, that can be traced to the Lalla Rookh Basin and the Carlindi Batholith in the north, giving it a total length of over 150 km. The MSZ contains both mylonites and ultramylonites, both of which have foliations that are subvertical to steeply dipping, with the ultramylonitic foliation overprinting the mylonitic foliation to form more lo…
Comment on "Displacement along the Karakoram fault, NW Himalaya, estimated from LA-ICP-MS U Pb dating of offset geologic markers" published by Shifen…
2013
International audience; Field evidence for syn-deformation migmatization and crystallization along the Karakorum fault contradicts the study of Wang et al. (2012). The ages of such magmatic rocks provide minimum ages for the onset of deformation at similar to 23 Ma in North Ayilari and similar to 19 Ma in Tangtse. The onset of deformation at 12 Ma in the Ayilari range inferred by Wang et al. (2012) from a muscovite Ar/Ar age is a cooling age, thus only a minimum age. The similar to 60 Ma granodiorite bodies, the ophiolitic rocks and the south Kailash thrust that are correlated across the fault to provide a 52 +/- 2 km finite offset do not define reliable piercing points. Such observations a…
Understanding Paleomagnetic Rotations in Sicily: Thrust Versus Strike-Slip Tectonics
2018
The paleomagnetic investigation of the western Sicily Maghrebian belt has revealed since the 1970s that large clockwise rotations up to 140° with respect to the Hyblean-African foreland occurred synchronous with Tertiary shortening of the chain. The observation that rotations decrease stepwise from internal to external tectono-stratigraphic units led in the 1990s to a widely accepted model postulating that rotational thrust-sheet emplaced during forward orogenic propagation. More recently, other authors suggested that clockwise rotations from Sicily are conversely the result of late orogenic dextral strike-slip tectonics. Here we report on a paleomagnetic investigation of 30 Jurassic-Eocene…