Active tectonic characteristics of river terraces along the Tianquan River, Sichuan, China

Abstract:

The Longmenshan fold-and-thrust belt at the western edge of the Sichuan Basin has long been identified as an active tectonic belt. This has been clearly illustrated by the disastrous Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes in the recent decade. The two earthquakes, however, have distinctive characters. In the north, the Wenchuan event occurred on major fault zones identified previously. But in the south, the Lushan event was not accompanied by surface ruptures, and the seismogenic structure is still under debate. In order to further understand the neotectonic characteristics of the Lushan earthquake region, we analyzed fluvial terraces, in the hope that such geomorphic features would provide information of active structures of the area.

Along the Tianquan River, river terraces are particularly well developed near two cities, Tianquan and Shiyang. Since the terraces appear to be very wide and limited in these two basin-like areas, we suspected that they formed as filled-up lakes. However, after detailed field investigations, we found that underneath these terraces, early Tertiary bedrocks crop out below river sediments that are only several meters thick. This indicates that the Tianquan River has incised into bedrocks. The slope of the terrace surfaces is similar to that of the present-day riverbed, and the river sediments in the terrace outcrops have similar grain size distribution as current riverbed sediments. Therefore, we suggest that the terraces along the Tianquan River are not related to dammed lake, but were produced by tectonic uplift. Combining the age of terrace sediments dated by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and detailed topography of the terrace surfaces, we aim to establish a model for the formation mechanism of these two terrace groups. We hope the results of this study would provide more information of neotectonic characteristics of the southwestern Sichuan Basin, as well as future earthquake hazards in this densely populated region.