Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to capture ancient seismic offsets along the Altyn Tagh fault

Abstract:

High resolution topographic data is a key ingredient to assess the amplitude of seismic displacements along strike-slip fault. For faults that slip during earthquakes with centennial to millennial recurrence time, erosion smoothes out the sharpness of both geomorphic markers and surface breaks. Co-registred, high resolution digital elevation models and ground images are thus necessary to reconstruct past displacements and deformations along faults. The recent explosion in centimeter resolution topographic data obtained by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) raises the possibility of mapping geomorphic offsets of active faults with unprecedented accuracy. Here we tested the technique to obtain high-resolution images and generate topographic data along the Altyn Tagh fault, main active strike-slip fault along the northern edge of Tibet. The existence of spectacular scarps, combined with the low level of instrumental seismicity and lack of well documented historical events requires especialy detailed studies of surface faulting. At several sites along the Altun segment of the fault we reconstruct well preserved offsets based on both 2D-orthophotos and 3D-views of the landscape. The results show that the UAV data provides centimeter resolution, allowing accurate mapping of past ruptures. We determine a co-seismic offset of 5.6 m for the last event south of Annanba. We also reconstruct cumulative offsets of 11±0.5 m, 22±1 m and 32±2 m. The horizontal offsets obtained suggest that last and penultimate events had similar slip amounts locally. The larger slip values deduced from the other offsets may also result from repeated 5-5.5 m co-seismic slip but more data is needed to confirm such a characteristic slip behavior. Clearly, UAV-based imagery shows great potential for high-resolution seismotectonic research and seismic hazard assessment.