Offshore Deformation Front in Miaoli Area

Abstract:

Taiwan is located at the junction of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. It’s because arc-continent collision occurs in the western Taiwan, resulting in the orogeny has formed a fold-and-thrust belt, developing a series of thrusts aligned in north-south direction. The thrust faults, locating in the central island, are the oldest and have almost inactive. Westward to the island, the faults become younger, dipping angles are smaller, and motions were stronger. On the west side, the foot of the Taiwan Western Foothill is considered the youngest thrust faults located along west Taiwan. Scholars recognized them as so-called the deformation front, and they also believed that the deformation front is located in between the compressive terrain uplifted area and the extensional subsidence area. Therefore, this front line is on the boundary of two different tectonic zones. This study investigates the trace of the deformation front in Miaoli area. Previous studies suggested that the west side of Miaoli collision zone should be fault-bounded, and is located in the seabed. However, in the geological map, there is no geologic evidence that appears on land and so-called active faults related with this deformation front. In the near coast seafloor, according to the reflection earthquakes data from the Institute of Oceanography of NTU, we can only see the offshore strata have been uplifted, and the data also shows that seabed is only covered by thin layer of sediments. This study indicates that in offshore place within three kilometers, shallow formations show a special layer of slime which was extruded to be corrugated transversely. Accordingly, we believe that this slime layer should be pressurized and filled with muddy water. Such features should be further investigated with other geological and geophysical survey data to check if they belong to the structural product of the deformation front.