late pleistocene and holocene loess sedimentation in central and western qilian shan china revealed by osl dating abstract the knowledge of loess accumulation in the central and western qilian shan was restricted to the time span since 13 11 ka until present loess deposits prior to this period have not yet been reported in this study 23 loess samples from the northern piedmont of central and western qilian shan area have been dated using fine grained quartz optically stimulated luminescence osl dating technique to set up a chronological framework for the loess sedimentation in this region our results demonstrate that the deposition of dust was widespread since the last deglaciation 13 ka until 3 6 ka in the northern piedmont of the central and western qilian shan area furthermore the chronology of the loess sedimentation has been extended back at least to 81 ka which is remarkably older than previously thought the existence of suitable environmental conditions e g vegetation cover for loess accumulation can be deduced in the central and western qilian shan for the holocene and late pleistocene however the loess sedimentation has been revealed to be discontinuous before 13 ka as indicated by its episodic occurrence

slip rate measurements on the karakorum fault may imply secular variations in fault motion beryllium 10 surface exposure dating of offset moraines on one branch of the karakorum fault west of the gar basin yields a long term 140 to 20 thousand year right lateral slip rate of 10 7 0 7 millimeters per year this rate is 10 times larger than that inferred from recent insar analyses 1 3 millimeters per year that span 8 years and sample all branches of the fault the difference in slip rate determinations suggests that large rate fluctuations may exist over centennial or millennial time scales such fluctuations would be consistent with mechanical coupling between the seismogenic brittle creep and ductile shear sections of faults that reach deep into the crust

holocene rate of slip and tentative recurrence interval for large earthquakes on the san andreas fault cajon pass southern california abstract detailed mapping of the san andreas fault zone where it crosses cajon creek southern california has revealed a number of late quaternary deposits and geomorphological features offset by the fault radiocarbon dates from alluvial and swamp deposits provide a detailed chronology with which to characterize the activity of the san andreas fault four independent determinations of the slip rate on the san andreas fault yield an average rate of 24 5 3 5 mm yr for the past 14 400 years the similarity of the four values which span different intervals of time from 5900 to 14 400 years ago suggest that the slip rate has been constant during this period the slip rate confirms that the san andreas fault is accumulating slip faster than any other fault in the plate boundary throughout california also the sum of the slip rates on the san andreas 24 5 mm yr and the san jacinto 10 mm yr faults south of their junction is the same as the san andreas north of their junction 35 mm yr an excavation provided evidence for at least two and up to four earthquakes that caused rupture on the fault between 1290 and 1805 a d and tentative evidence for six earthquakes in about the last 1000 years both lines of evidence imply an average recurrence interval for large earthquakes of about 1 to 2 centuries combined with the historic record this investigation indicates that the last major earthquake at cajon creek was probably at the beginning or middle of the 18th century while the record at cajon creek may suggest that the next major earthquake on the san andreas fault is overdue the data can be interpreted to indicate that the recurrence interval for earthquakes on the san andreas south of the 1857 rupture is 3 to 4 centuries and that the anticipated event should not be expected until the next century

late quaternary to decadal velocity fields in asia 1 fields of crustal velocity and strain rate within asia averaged over horizontal distances of 300 km are calculated from estimates of quaternary slip rates on faults and rates of change of lengths of baselines between gps sites the calculated fields fit strain rate components estimated from quaternary slip rates within 95 confidence limits and fit the gps data with an rms residual of 2 5 mm yr 1 the strain rate field constrained only by quaternary slip rates of faults differs from the combined solution at the level of 20 nstrain yr 1 and the differences are explicable by the limited accuracy of geological estimates of slip rate therefore the strain rate fields determined by geodetic measurements taken on the 10 year timescale are consistent with geological observations on the 104 year timescale the combined solution for velocities shows plate or block like motion within deforming asia only in tarim south china and the amurian region elsewhere the kinematics of rigid blocks does not provide a useful description of the motion in particular velocities relative to eurasia point at high angles to contours of their magnitudes not parallel to them as they would if large regions moved as rigid blocks the axes of principal horizontal compressional strain align with topographic gradients in agreement with previous suggestions that asia deforms as a continuum under the influence of gravity

characteristics of the tropical intraseasonal oscillation in the ncar community climate model summary the structure of the intraseasonal oscillation in a perpetual january integration of the ncar community climate model ccm is analysed and compared with observations the simulated oscillation is identified as an eastward moving perturbation in the equatorial velocity potential field with predominantly zonal wavenumber 1 structure analysis of its vertical and horizontal structure based on composites shows good agreement with the observed oscillation from station data and from numerical weather prediction model analyses the simulated intraseasonal oscillation is evident in the wind fields at all longitudes but its appearance in the precipitation and outgoing long wave radiation is confined to the eastern hemisphere the perturbation to the zonal wind component is characterized by an out of phase behaviour between the lower and upper troposphere which is most coherent in the convective regions of the indian ocean and west pacific the streamfunction anomalies in these regions are suggestive of a coupled rossby kelvin wave whilst in the western hemisphere the oscillation is more characteristic of a kelvin wave the role of cloud radiation interaction was studied using a parallel integration in which the cloud longwave forcing in the atmosphere was removed this was found to influence the strength of the oscillation but had no significant impact on the period in common with other model simulations of the intraseasonal oscillation the period was found to be too short near 25 days reasons for this are discussed in the context of a similar analysis of a perpetual july integration in which a much slower period near 54 days and less coherent oscillation was identified

fast late pleistocene slip rate on the leng long ling segment of the haiyuan fault qinghai china 1 fieldwork along the western haiyuan fault where it cuts young glacial landforms in the leng long ling range qinghai northeastern tibet yields new constraints on its long term left slip rate our mapping near 101 85 e based on aerial photographs 1 50 000 topographic maps and spot images shows glacial valley edges and lateral moraines offset 200 m by the fault quartz rich cobbles were sampled on top of one moraine for in situ 10be and 26al cosmogenic nuclide dating among 12 dated samples the 6 oldest show ages clustering at 10 300 339 years this age probably reflects the time of last reshaping of the moraine before the valley glacier withdrew south of the fault around the end of the younger dryas 11 000 years b p assuming that the 200 40 m moraine offset started to be recorded after glacial retreat across the fault constrains the late pleistocene slip rate on the leng long ling segment of the haiyuan fault to be 19 5 mm yr

present day kinematics at the india asia collision zone the collision of the indian subcontinent with asia drives the growth and evolution of the greater tibetan plateau region fault slip rates resulting from the relative motion between crustal blocks can provide a kinematic description of the distribution of presentday deformation i construct a three dimensional regional scale elastic block model of the india asia collision zone that is consistent with geodetic observations of interseismic deforma tion mapped fault system geometry historical seismicity and the mechanics of the earthquake cycle this mechanical model of the elastic upper crust yields a set of kinematically consistent fault slip rates and block motions that may serve to constrain dynamic models of continental crustal dynamics

millennial recurrence of large earthquakes on the haiyuan fault near songshan gansu province china the haiyuan fault is a major active left lateral fault along the northeast edge of the tibet qinghai plateau studying this fault is important in understanding current deformation of the plateau and the mechanics of continental deformation in general previous studies have mostly focused on the slip rate of the fault paleo seismic investigations on the fault are sparse and have been targeted mostly at the stretch of the fault that ruptured in the 1920 m 8 6 earthquake in ningxia province to investigate the millennial seismic history of the western haiyuan fault we opened two trenches in a small pull apart basin near songshan in gansu province the excavation exposes sedimentary layers of alternating colors dark brown silty to clayey deposit and light yellowish brown layers of coarser grained sandy deposit the main fault zone is readily recognizable by the disruption and tilting of the layers six paleoseismic events are identified and named ss1 through ss6 from youngest to oldest charcoal is abundant yet generally tiny in the shallowest parts of the trench exposures thirteen samples were dated to constrain the ages of paleoseismic events all six events have occurred during the past 3500 3900 years the horizontal offsets associated with these events are poorly known however events ss3 to ss6 appear to be large ones judging from comparison of vertical separations and widths of fault zones the youngest event ss1 instead seems to be a minor one probably the 1990 mw 5 8 earthquake thus four large events in 3500 3900 years would imply a re currence interval of about 1000 years three events ss2 to ss4 prior to 1990 occurred sometime during 1440 1640 a d shortly after 890 1000 a d and 0 410 a d re spectively we tentatively associate them with the 1514 a d 1092 a d and 143 or 374 a d historical earthquakes taking 10 2 m of slip for large events ss3 and ss4 comparable to the 1920 m 8 haiyuan earthquake their occurrence times would be consistent with the long term 12 4 mm yr estimate of lasserre et al 1999 however a more realistic evaluation of slip rate and its possible change with time requires a more rigorous determination of coseismic slip amounts of past earth quakes

propagating and nonpropagating mjo events over maritime continent abstractthe observed outgoing longwave radiation olr and era interim data during 1979 2008 from november to april were analyzed to reveal fundamental differences between eastward propagating ep and nonpropagating np mjo events across the maritime continent mc it was found that when the maximum mjo convection arrives near 120 e a positive moisture tendency lies in a longitudinal zone 10 s 10 n 130 170 e for the ep cases whereas a negative tendency appears in the same region for the np cases in the latter cases there are clearly detectable westward propagating rossby wave type dry signals over the equatorial central western pacific the dry rossby wave signal may hinder the development of new convection to the east of the mjo convective center preventing the eastward propagation of the mjo a moisture budget analysis shows that the positive tendency of specific humidity in the ep composite is mainly attributed to the advection of the mean moisture by an intraseasonal ascending motion ano

comparison of geodetic and geologic data from the wasatch region utah and implications for the spectral character of earth deformation at periods of 10 to 10 million years the wasatch fault and adjacent fault zones provide an opportunity to compare present day deformation rate estimates obtained from space geodesy with geologic displacement rates over at least four temporal windows ranging from the last millennium up to 10 myr the three easternmost gps sites of the basin and range geodetic network bargen at this latitude define a 130 km wide region spanning three major normal faults extending east west at a total rate of 2 7 0 4 mm yr with an average regional strain rate estimated to be 21 4 nstrain yr about twice the basin and range average on the wasatch fault the vertical component of the geologic displacement rate is 1 7 0 5 mm yr since 6 ka 0 6 mm yr since 130 ka and 0 5 0 7 mm yr since 10 ma however it appears likely that at the longest timescale rates slowed over time from 1 0 to 1 4 mm yr between 10 and 6 ma to 0 2 to 0 3 mm yr since 6 ma the cumulative vertical displacement record across all three faults also shows time variable strain release ranging from 2 to 4 mm yr since 10 ka to 1 mm yr averaged over the past 130 kyr conventional earthquake recurrence models reid type behavior would require an accordingly large variation in strain accumulation or loading rate on a 10 kyr timescale for which there appears to be no obvious geophysical explanation alternatively seismic strain release given a wide range of plausible constitutive behaviors for frictional sliding may be clustered on the 10 kyr timescale resulting in the high holocene rates with comparatively low uniform strain accumulation rates on the 100 kyr timescale wallace type behavior the latter alternative combined with observations at the million year timescale and the likelihood of a significant contribution of postseismic transients implies maxima of spectral amplitude in the velocity field at periods of 10 myr variations in tectonic loading 10 kyr clustered strain release and of 100 years postseismic transients if so measurements of strain accumulation and strain release may be strongly timescale dependent for any given fault system

present day crustal motion within the tibetan plateau inferred from gps measurements 1 using the measurements of 726 gps stations around the tibetan plateau we determine the rigid rotation of the entire plateau in a eurasia fixed reference frame which can be best described by an euler vector of 24 38 0 42 n 102 37 0 42 e 0 7096 0 0206 ma the rigid rotational component accommodates at least 50 of the northeastward thrust from india and dominates the eastward extrusion of the northern plateau after removing the rigid rotation to highlight the interior deformation within the plateau we find that the most remarkable interior deformation of the plateau is a glacier like flow zone which starts at somewhere between the middle and western plateau goes clockwise around the eastern himalayan syntaxis ehs and ends at the southeast corner of the plateau with a fan like front the deformation feature of the southern plateau especially the emergence of the flow zone could be attributed to an eastward escape of highly plastic upper crustal material driven by a lower crust viscous channel flow generated by lateral compression and gravitational buoyancy at the later developmental stage of the plateau the first order feature of crustal deformation of the northeastern plateau can be well explained by a three dimensional elastic half space dislocation model with rates of dislocation segments comparable to the ones from geological observations in the eastern plateau although gps data show no significant convergence between the eastern margin of the plateau and the sichuan basin a small but significant compressional strain rate component of 10 5 2 8 nstrain yr exists in a relatively narrow region around the eastern margin in addition a large part of the eastern plateau northeast of the ehs is not undergoing shortening along the northeastward convergence direction of the ehs but is stretching

late holocene slip rate of the san andreas fault and its accommodation by creep and moderate magnitude earthquakes at parkfield california investigation of a right laterally offset channel at the miller9s field paleoseismic site yields a late holocene slip rate of 26 2 6 4 4 3 mm yr 1 for the main trace of the san andreas fault at parkfield california this is the first well documented geologic slip rate between the carrizo and creeping sections of the san andreas fault this rate is lower than holocene measurements along the carrizo plain and rates implied by far field geodetic measurements 35 mm yr however the rate is consistent with historical slip rates measured to the northwest along the creeping section of the san andreas fault

stable rapid rate of slip since inception of the san jacinto fault california 1 in california where the san jacinto fault sjf and san andreas fault saf accommodate the majority of the dextral shear deformation between the pacific and north american plates initiation of the sjf led to an apparent decline in the slip rate of the saf previous studies suggest that since then slip rate has covaried between these faults possibly due to changes in fault strength variation in topographic loading along a fault or the development of new faults and that presently the sjf is the dominant plate boundary structure however we dated displaced sedimentary deposits and landforms over three distinct time intervals since 700 ka and our results imply a constant slip rate of 12 1 3 4 2 6 mm yr this rate is similar to the fault s lifetime rate and from rates derived from geodesy suggesting that since the sjf initiated its slip rate has remained relatively stable and does not exceed that of the saf

tertiary brittle faulting and stress field evolution in the gerecse mountains northern hungary abstract the gerecse mountains of the transdanubian range in northern hungary have suffered polyphase deformation during the tertiary the evolution of the stress fields was determined by the detailed structural survey of the area the statistical analysis of microtectonic observations the mapping and reinterpretation of fault pattern and the study of basin stratigraphy and geometry the stress fields show an apparent clockwise rotation from eocene until quaternary times three main phases were reconstructed during the eocene early oligocene e w to ene wsw oriented compression and perpendicular tension affected the area the formation and evolution of several sedimentary basins were controlled by fault systems activated by this phase after a period of intensive erosion in the early oligocene the stress field rotated approx 30 40 nw se directed compression and ne sw trending tension existed during the late oligocene and early miocene after correction with palaeomagnetic data an original palaeogene 1 orientation is deduced nne ssw reflecting the collisional processes of europe and the apulian microplate the middle miocene to pliocene period was characterised mainly by extensional deformation the direction of the minimal stress axis 3 varied between e w and nw se the characteristic clockwise rotation pattern of the tertiary palaeostress fields in the gerecse mts is explained by the combined effect of the regional stress field changes in the carpatho pannonian region and the rotation of the north pannonian unit

measurement of interseismic strain across the haiyuan fault gansu china by insar the haiyuan fault is part of a major left lateral fault system at the northeastern edge of the tibet qinghai plateau two m8 earthquakes 1920 and 1927 occurred along the fault bracketing an unbroken section of the fault identified as the tianzhu seismic gap we use interferometric synthetic aperture radar data from descending orbits of the ers satellites acquired between 1993 and 1998 along two adjacent tracks covering the gap to measure the current surface movements and better understand the present day mechanical behavior of this fault section the analysis of the radar data involves first the combined correction of orbital errors and errors associated with the phase delay through the troposphere a subset of the data is then selected based on the analysis of the residual noise spectra for each pair of data the selected interferograms are stacked and the average phase change rate is converted in fault parallel velocity assuming that the ground movement is horizontal and parallel to the fault velocity maps from both tracks show a zone of high velocity gradient across the fault a few kilometers wide consistent with left lateral slip on the haiyuan fault the average velocity field from the two tracks in their overlapping area is well fit with a single screw dislocation model in an elastic half space the derived fault slip rate at depth 4 2 8 mm yr is consistent with recent gps results the corresponding shallow apparent locking depth 0 4 2 km can be explained by a current low stress accumulation on the fault due to creep almost on the entire fault plane however unless it is transient this creep would be paradoxical with the occurrence of past large earthquakes along this fault section as revealed by paleoseismology an alternative model implying both shallow creep in the brittle upper crust and deep aseismic slip beneath the seismogenic layer separated by a locked section would be consistent with insar observations and with the potential for large earthquakes on the fault as well a two dislocation model with slip at 5 mm yr beneath 15 km and a transient creep rate of 11 mm yr between 2 and 7 km fits the insar data however the width and creep rate of the shallow creeping zone and their possible along strike variations are still poorly resolved with the present data set

northwestward propagation of the intraseasonal oscillation in the western north pacific during the boreal summer structure and mechanism abstract the convection of the intraseasonal timescale in the western north pacific during the boreal summer tends to propagate northwestward in the philippine sea to near 20 n and then continues propagating westward the formation of enhanced convection in the western north pacific is a result of the merging of a convective system moving eastward along the equator and a westward propagating low level convergence anomaly which is located to the east of a vortex in the subtropics a positive feedback between the anomalous circulation and convection leads to a rapid enhancement of the system the strengthened southwesterly associated with the vortex enhances evaporation over the oceans e g the eastern indian ocean the bay of bengal and the south china sea and transports moisture northeastward the moisture converges at the northwestern corner of the convection and results in a potentially unstable atmosphere the result is the northwestward propagation of the coupled circulation convection system in

geographical distribution of variance of intraseasonal variations in western indochina as revealed from radar reflectivity data abstract this study reveals remarkable differences in the geographical distribution of variance between two types of intraseasonal variations in daily mean radar reflectivity data in the western part of the indochina peninsula in this region the downa range lies parallel to the coast and separates the inland region from the coastal region the 30 60 day variation of reflectivity factor dominates most of the coastal region while its variance in the inland region is less than that of background red noise with the same frequency band horizontal gradients in the variance are largest over the range implying that the mountain range plays a significant role in the geographical contrast correlation analysis with reanalysis data shows that the variation only in the coastal region is associated with a synoptic scale zonal wind anomaly with the same time scale suggesting the importance of an orographic rainfall process that brings a large amount of precipitation only to the windward side of the downa range i

the madden julian oscillation observed during the toga coare iop global view abstract during the toga coare intensive observing period november 1992 february 1993 two pronounced madden julian oscillation mjo events associated with super cloud clusters and westerly wind bursts were observed this paper presents a global view of the mjos including the origin of the super clusters in the indian ocean their migration into the maritime continent and the toga coare large scale soundings array lsa in the western equatorial pacific and their rapid decay over cold water of the eastern pacific the structure and evolution of the mjo are examined with emphasis on the coupling between large scale motion and convection because of differences in propagation speeds the positions of maximum zonal wind perturbations relative to deep convection undergo systematic changes during the travel of the mjo however the centers of deep convection always coincide with those of large scale ascent the super cloud cluster accompanies a wide area of warm air in the upper troposphere over the warm

holocene loess sedimentation along the qilian shan china significance for understanding the processes and timing of loess deposition abstract we present optical ages for well preserved loess deposits along the qilian shan a 500 km long mountain belt forming the tectonically active northeastern margin of the tibetan plateau loess on tectonically controlled fill terraces along the shiyou and baiyong rivers was dated by applying the single aliquot regeneration sar technique to coarse grained 90 160 m quartz samples additional measurements on polymineralic fine grained 5 10 m samples were carried out to allow a comparison between various optical dating techniques currently in use the results demonstrate that i loess accumulation started between 13 and 11 ka b p continuing to the present ii mean loess accumulation rates range between 9 and 16 cm ka 1 and iii holocene loess is not restricted to certain sites only but is a prevalent phenomenon along the qilian shan mountain front the absence of loess deposits of late pleistocene age is a result of a combination of cold and dry climate conditions strong winds and the absence of a vegetation cover during the last glacial period only with the change to a warmer and moister climate at the onset of the holocene did a plant cover develop which acted as a dust trap thus initiating the formation of loess

tropical 45 day oscillations during the 1979 northern hemisphere summer abstract based on fgge 1 cvel iiib data the structural features of 45 day perturbations over a tropical belt 15 n 15 s during the 1979 summer are detailed at the equator 45 day perturbations which are primarily associated with the zonal wind components of wavenumber 1 propagate eastward 8 of longitude per day and upward 0 7 km per day probably indicating downward energy flux in the southern hemisphere tropics 0 15 s the 45 day zonal mean wind perturbations propagate downward with an approximate phase speed of 0 8 km per day in the northern hemisphere tropics they are largely of standing character with the maximum amplitude 3 m s 1 near 200 mb at 15 n there exists a strong association between monsoon activity over south asia and changes in the intensity of the equatorial walker circulation when active monsoons occur over south asia the walker circulation becomes stronger than usual with prominent 850 mb easterlies 200 mb easterlies over the eastern pacific east of the date line an

vertical variation of low frequency oscillations in uhf radar derived winds at a tropical indian station 1 signatures of the low frequency intraseasonal oscillations and their vertical variation in the lower troposphere are studied using multilevel wind observations made at a tropical indian station pune 18 32 n 73 51 e from wind profiler uhf radar during the period june 2003 to may 2006 spectral analysis using fast fourier transform showed the presence of oscillations 30 40 days and 50 70 days in daily mean zonal winds and revealed their evolution in height period structures the 30 40 days oscillation mode has the largest amplitude compared to the other modes in zonal and meridional winds all oscillation modes have much less amplitude in the vertical wind component the high temporal 3 hourly zonal and meridional wind observations obtained during the southwest monsoon period june to september jjas during the years 2003 2004 and 2005 showed a prominent regime of oscillation namely 30 40 days and a moderate signature of 10 20 day mode in all three years it is seen that these oscillations are not occurring as a single frequency sinusoidal oscillation but are seen as broadband spectrum the amplitude of these wave modes showed significant vertical variation the vertical structures of radar observed intraseasonal oscillations 30 40 days mode and tropical rainfall measuring mission derived mean precipitation intensity during the monsoon period jjas during the years 2003 2005 showed a reasonable comparison the results presented in this study show significant intraseasonal and interannual variability in lower tropospheric winds which are closely related to the performance of the southwest monsoon

contrasting characteristics between the northward and eastward propagation of the intraseasonal oscillation during the boreal summer abstract this study investigates the structural and evolutionary characteristics of the eastward and northward propagating intraseasonal oscillation iso in the indian ocean and western pacific during the boreal summer along the equator the near surface moisture convergence located to the east of the deep convection region appears to result in the eastward propagation of the iso consistent with the frictional wave cisk conditional instability of the second kind mechanism proposed in previous studies the eastward propagation is characterized by sequentially downstream development of deep convection occuring mainly in certain regions such as 60 95 120 and 145 e and the date line the northward propagation of deep convection can be attributed to the low level moisture convergence located to the north this convergence is a deep structure extending from the surface to the middle troposphere near surface convergence appears only after the systems approach the landmass in the north it is sugges

intraseasonal variability of the south china sea summer monsoon the objective of this study is to explore based on the national centers for environmental prediction national center for atmospheric research ncep ncar reanalysis data the intraseasonal variability of the south china sea scs summer monsoon sm in terms of its structure and propagation as well as interannual variations a possible mechanism that is responsible for the origin of the 10 20 day oscillation of the scs sm is also proposed the 30 60 day hereafter the 3 6 mode and 10 20 day hereafter the 1 2 mode oscillations are found to be the two intraseasonal modes that control the behavior of the scssm activities for most of the years both the 3 6 and 1 2 modes are distinct but may not always exist simultaneously in a particular year and their contributions to the overall variations differ among different years thus the interannual variability in the intraseasonal oscillation activity of the scs sm may be categorized as follows the 3 6 category in which the 3 6 mode is more significant in terms of the percentage of variance explained than the 1 2 mode the 1 2 category in which the 1 2 mode is dominant and the dual category in which both the 3 6 and 1 2 modes are pronounced composite analyses of the 3 6 category cases indicate that the 30 60 day oscillation of the scs sm exhibits a trough ridge seesaw in which the monsoon trough and subtropical ridge exist alternatively over the scs with anomalous cyclones anticyclones along with enhanced suppressed convection migrating northward from the equator to the midlatitudes the northward migrating 3 6 mode monsoon trough ridge in the lower troposphere is coupled with the eastward propagating 3 6 mode divergence convergence in the upper troposphere it is also found that for the years in the dual category the scs sm activities are basically controlled by the 3 6 mode but modified by the 1 2 mode composite results of the 1 2 mode category cases show that the 10 20 day oscillation is manifest as an anticyclone cyclone system over the western tropical pacific propagating northwestward into the scs a close coupling also exists between the upper level convergence divergence and the low level anticyclone cyclone it is found that the 1 2 mode of the scs sm mainly originates from the equatorial central pacific although a disturbance from the northeast of the scs also contributes to this mode the flow patterns from an inactive to an active period resemble those associated with a mixed rossby gravity wave observed in previous studies

oblique stepwise rise and growth of the tibet plateau two end member models of how the high elevations in tibet formed are i continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow of the crust and mantle of the entire plateau and ii time dependent localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks recent studies of cenozoic deformation magmatism and seismic structure lend support to the latter since india collided with asia 55 million years ago the rise of the high tibetan plateau likely occurred in three main steps by successive growth and uplift of 300 to 500 kilometer wide crustal thrust wedges the crust thickened while the mantle decoupled beneath gently dipping shear zones did not sediment infilling bathtub like of dammed intermontane basins formed flat high plains at each step the existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the himalayas subduction was oblique and accompanied by extrusion along the left lateral strike slip faults that slice tibet s east side these mechanisms akin to plate tectonics hidden by thickening crust with slip partitioning account for the dominant growth of the tibet plateau toward the east and northeast

production of cosmogenic radionuclides at great depth a multi element approach abstract for the last two decades in situ produced cosmogenic nuclides are increasingly applied in earth sciences to quantify surface processes in parallel significant reduction of the analytical uncertainties linked to advances in accelerator mass spectrometry ams allows more precise measurements however among all the published works on cosmogenic nuclides only few studies are dedicated to a better understanding of their production systematic or to a better constrain of the physical parameters involved in their production thus an approach to investigate in situ produced cosmogenic nuclides 10 be 26 al and 36 cl along a single 11 meter long core drilled from the surface and composed of carbonates and quartzose conglomerates has been launched these measurements have been used to quantify muon induced productions based on natural samples for each studied nuclide contrary to the current most oftenly used calculation of muon induced production parameters which are based on irradiation experiments at discrete energies productions based on natural samples are considering the entire energy range of particles reaching the ground surface the evolution of 36 cl concentrations with depth needs to agree with those parameters deduced from 10 be and 26 al data this is optimized when considering a fast muon induced 36 cl production contribution and a spallation production rate at sea level high latitude slhl of 42 0 2 0 atoms 36 cl g ca 1 a 1 1 sigma uncertainty

continuous deformation of the tibetan plateau from global positioning system data global positioning system velocities from 553 control points within the tibetan plateau and on its margins show that the present day tectonics in the plateau is best described as deformation of a continuous medium at least when averaged over distances of 100 km deformation occurs throughout the plateau interior by ese wnw extension and slightly slower nne ssw shortening relative to eurasia material within the plateau interior moves roughly eastward with speeds that increase toward the east and then flows southward around the eastern end of the himalaya crustal thickening on the northeast ern and eastern margins of the plateau occurs over a zone 400 km wide and cannot be the result of elastic strain on a single major thrust fault shortening there accommodates much of india s penetration into eurasia a description in terms of movements of rigid blocks with elastic strain associated with slip on faults between them cannot match the velocity field

slip rate and locking depth from gps profiles across the southern dead sea transform 1 the dead sea transform is a major strike slip fault bounding the arabia plate and the sinai subplate on the basis of two gps campaign measurements 6 years apart at 17 sites distributed in israel and jordan complemented by israeli permanent stations we compute the present day deformation across the southern segment of the dead sea transform the wadi araba fault elastic locked fault modeling of fault parallel velocities provides a slip rate of 4 9 1 4 mm a and a best fit locking depth of 12 km this slip rate is slightly higher than previous results based only on israeli permanent gps stations data which are located west of the fault it is in good agreement with results based on offset geomorphologic and geologic features that average longer periods of time 10 ka to 1 ma projection in itrf2000 reference frame allows using our data combined with results published earlier to further study the kinematics between arabia nubia and sinai systematic combination of euler poles available in the literature in addition to our new set of data shows that a wide range of arabia sinai pole positions and angular velocities predict reasonable slip rate on the dead sea fault we highlight uncertainties of calculating such poles due to the small size of the blocks and their slow relative motion along a short and almost straight strand of the transform fault which lead to a large trade off between pole location and angular velocity

fundamental causes of propagating and nonpropagating mjos in mjotf gass models abstractthis study investigates the fundamental causes of differences in the madden julian oscillation mjo eastward propagation among models that participated in a recent model intercomparison project these models are categorized into good and poor groups characterized by prominent eastward propagation and nonpropagation respectively column integrated moist static energy mse budgets are diagnosed for the good and the poor models it is found that a zonal asymmetry in the mse tendency characteristic of eastward mjo propagation occurs in the good group whereas such an asymmetry does not exist in the poor group the difference arises mainly from anomalous vertical and horizontal mse advection the former is attributed to the zonal asymmetry of upper midtropospheric vertical velocity anomalies acting on background mse vertical gradient the latter is mainly attributed to the asymmetric zonal distribution of low tropospheric meridional wind anomalies advecting background mse and moisture fields base

additional evidence of an upper tropospheric zonal eddy relationship during winter abstract a zonal wind oscillation with a period of about 15 35 days is isolated over the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere during winter a systematic relationship between the zonal winds and wind departures from zonal symmetry eddies is found for nine prominent zonal wind oscillation cycles taken from six 120 day winters this zonal eddy relationship consists of an oscillation between anomalous zonal flow and anomalous meridional flow which is strongest across north america from 150 w to 0

rapid slip along the central altyn tagh fault morphochronologic evidence from cherchen he and sulamu tagh consistent with the d 18 o record from the guliya ice cap in the west kunlun the features of interest were all formed by glacial and fluvial processes subsequent to marine isotope stage 5e with the youngest features having formed during the early holocene optimum this near field morphochronological slip rate is averaged over many earthquake cycles and is hence little affected by interseismic strain it is kinematically consistent with other somewhat lower geomorphic slip rate measurements to the east the average rate and lower bounds obtained from alternate interpretational models 18 4 mm yr cannot be reconciled with the most rece geodetic measurements 7 mm yr suggesting that interseismic strain and interactions with adjacent faults may lead to disparate geologic and geodetic rate estimates this late pleistocene holocene morphochronologic rate would imply that at this longitude the altyn tagh fault on the north edge of tibet might absorb almost as much of india s convergence relative to siberia as the himalayan main frontal thrust does on the southern edge of the plateau index terms 1035 geochemistry geochronology 1208 geodesy and gravity crustal movements intraplate 8110 8102 tectonophysics continental contractional orogenic belts 8107 tectonophysics continental neotectonics keywords slip rates cosmogenic dating indo asian collision

present day kinematics of asia derived from geologic fault rates active fault geometry available quaternary rates on major faults and the far field plate motion are used to determine crustal kinematics in the collision zone between india and asia using a finite element formalism to construct a spherical shell model of the asian continent with embedded faults we seek a velocity solution approaching the motion of rigid blocks by minimizing the elastic strain energy in the fault bounded blocks by doing so we test the assumption that long term deformation within continents is mostly localized into major faults in the solution fault motion accounts for more than 80 of the deformation allowing us to describe our velocity model in terms of quasi rigid block rotations on the sphere south china is rotating clockwise about a pole located southwest of borneo implying an e ese velocity vector of 11 mm yr for a point at shanghai in agreement with the velocity vector determined by very long baseline interferometry heki et al 1995 the eastward movement of south china is accommodated by oblique extension along the red river fault at a rate of 10 5 mm yr in the south and by the combination of left lateral strike slip motion on the qinling dabie shan fault and the counterclockwise rotation of the ordos and adjacent blocks in the north the tarim rotates clockwise with respect to dzungaria about a pole located at 44 n 92 e consistent with increasing crustal shortening toward the west throughout the tien shan assuming incompressibility a crustal volume budget over a domain encompassing the tertiary mountain ranges in asia shows that over the last 10 000 years 73 4 of the north south shortening between india and asia has been absorbed by thickening of the lithosphere and 27 has been accommodated by lateral extrusion of continental blocks the present day predominance of thickening in asia results from the relatively slow eastward motion of south china controlled by strike slip faulting in the qinling shan and oblique extension in northeastern china

collaborative effects of cold surge and tropical depression type disturbance on heavy rainfall in central vietnam abstract this paper reveals synoptic scale atmospheric conditions over the south china sea scs that cause heavy rainfall in central vietnam through case study and composite analyses the heavy rainfall event discussed in this study occurred on 2 3 november 1999 precipitation in hue city central vietnam was more than 1800 mm for these 2 days two atmospheric disturbances played key roles in this heavy rainfall first a cold surge cs northerly wind anomaly in the lower troposphere originating in northern china near 40 n propagated southward to reach the northern scs and then lingered there for a couple of days resulting in stronger than usual northeasterly winds continuously blowing into the indochina peninsula against the annam range second a southerly wind anomaly over the central scs associated with a tropical depression type disturbance tdd in southern vietnam seemed to prevent the cs from propagating farther southward over the northern scs the southerly wind anomaly formed a strong l

the geological evolution of the tibetan plateau the geological evolution of the tibetan plateau is best viewed in a context broader than the india eurasia collision zone after collision about 50 million years ago crust was shortened in western and central tibet while large fragments of lithosphere moved from the collision zone toward areas of trench rollback in the western pacific and indonesia cessation of rapid pacific trench migration 15 to 20 million years ago coincided with a slowing of fragment extrusion beyond the plateau and probably contributed to the onset of rapid surface uplift and crustal thickening in eastern tibet the latter appear to result from rapid eastward flow of the deep crust probably within crustal channels imaged seismically beneath eastern tibet these events mark a transition to the modern structural system that currently accommodates deformation within tibet

the aksay segment of the northern altyn tagh fault tectonic geomorphology landscape evolution and holocene slip rate 1 millennial slip rates have been determined for the altyn tagh fault atf at three sites near aksay 94 e in northeastern tibet by dating fluvial channels and terrace riser offsets with radiocarbon and 10be 26al surface exposure dating up to nine main surfaces are defined on the basis of morphology elevation and dating the abandonment age of some surfaces is constrained by radiocarbon dating which typically coincides with the youngest cosmogenic ages for a particular surface older surface exposure ages are taken to represent the duration of terrace emplacement cumulative offsets range from 20 to 260 m and fall in distinct groups indicative of climatically modulated regional landscape formation most samples are younger than 14 ka and postdate the last glacial maximum the end of the early holocene optimum marks the boundary between the ages of the two main terrace levels at 5 6 ka at this longitude the atf is divided into a northern and southern branch the northern atf should thus yield a minimum rate for the atf system slip rate estimates using the abandonment age of the overlying level for fill terraces or channels and the emplacement of the underlying level for strath terraces give 30 consistent results yielding an average holocene rate of 17 8 3 6 mm yr it is 9 mm yr less than the long term rate obtained near tura at 87 e 26 9 6 9 mm yr in keeping with the inference of an eastward decreasing rate on the atf due to increased thrusting to the south however it remains twice the rate determined by gps studies

riser diachroneity lateral erosion and uncertainty in rates of strike slip faulting a case study from tuzidun along the altyn tagh fault nw china 1 at late quaternary timescales offset fluvial terrace risers are among the most common landforms used to determine rates of strike slip faulting although diachroneity in the age of riser segments on opposite sides of the fault has been noted previously an unexplored source of uncertainty associated with deriving slip rates from these markers centers on quantifying the size of the displacement uncertainty such diachroneity introduces to evaluate the impact of riser diachroneity we investigated the tuzidun site 37 73 n 86 72 e along the cherchen he reach of the active central altyn tagh fault the east bank of the channel is flanked by a left laterally offset terrace riser while the measured offset is 54 3 m geochronologic measurements and analysis of riser topography indicate that the downstream riser segment formed between 6 0 0 8 ka and 5 7 0 4 ka while the upstream riser segment may have been laterally refreshed as recently as 0 5 0 2 ka a valley wall on the west bank of the channel places a maximum limit of 38 6 m on the amount of possible lateral erosion of the upstream riser this bound in turn limits the total offset since formation of the downstream riser to range from 54 3 to 89 7 m together these observations bracket the millennial altyn tagh fault slip rate to range from 9 0 1 3 to 15 5 1 7 mm a 1 more generally this investigation shows that the observed riser displacement does not necessarily correlate with the age of either riser segment downstream or upstream of the fault in cases where one segment is displaced while the other is subjected to lateral erosion if this diachroneity goes undetected erroneous slip rate measurements are likely to result

microplate model for the present day deformation of tibet 1 site velocities from 349 global positioning system gps stations are used to construct an 11 element quasi rigid block model of the tibetan plateau and its surroundings rigid rotations of five major blocks are well determined and average translation velocities of six smaller blocks can be constrained where data are well distributed the velocity field can be explained well by rigid block motion and fault slip across block boundaries residual misfits average 1 6 mm yr compared to typical one standard deviation velocity uncertainties of 1 3 mm yr any residual internal straining of the blocks is small and heterogeneous however residual substructure might well represent currently unresolved motions of smaller blocks although any smaller blocks must move at nearly the same rate as the larger blocks within which they lie undetected relative motions between them could be significant particularly where there are gaps in gps coverage predicted relative motions between major blocks agree with the observed sense of slip and along strike partitioning of motion across major faults however predicted slip rates across tibet s major strike slip faults are low only 5 12 mm yr a factor of 2 3 smaller than most rates estimated from fault offset features dated by radiometric methods as 2000 to 100 000 year old previous work has suggested that both gps data and low fault slip rates are incompatible with rigid block motions of tibet the results reported here overcome these objections

discharge discharge variability and the bedrock channel profile long term bedrock incision is driven by daily discharge events of variable magnitude and frequency with ineffective events below an incision threshold we explore theoretically how this short term stochastic behavior controls long term steady state incision rates and bedrock channel profiles combining a realistic frequency magnitude distribution of discharge with a deterministic detachment limited incision model in which incision rate is a power function of basal shear stress above a critical shear stress our model predicts a power law relationship between steady state slope and drainage area consistent with observations the exponent of this power law is independent of discharge mean and variability while the amplitude factor which controls mountain belt relief is a power law function of mean runoff with an exponent of 0 5 and a complex function of runoff variability in accordance with evidence that incision occurs between 6 and 20 of time in rapidly incising rivers 1 mm yr our model predicts that channel steepness is virtually insensitive to runoff variability runoff variability can only decrease channel steepness for very slow incision rates and or weak lithologies the relationship between channel steepness and incision rate is always a power law whose exponent depends on the channel cross sectional geometry and runoff variability this contradicts models neglecting discharge stochasticity in which the steepness incision scaling is set by the incision law exponent our results suggest that changes in climate variability cannot explain an increase in bedrock incision rates during the late cenozoic within the context of a detachment limited model

selective response of the south china sea circulation to summer monsoon abstractthe response of the south china sea scs circulation to intraseasonal variability of the summer monsoon is studied with both observations and a 1 5 layer reduced gravity model intraseasonal variability of the scs summer monsoon is characterized by evolution of the wind jet intensity in the midbasin with typical amplitude of 6 m s 1 and several peaks on its power spectrum between 10 and 60 days however this study finds that intraseasonal variability of the sea surface height ssh in the scs presents significant variability to the southeast of vietnam with amplitude of 6 cm and a period only between 40 and 60 days this implicates the frequency selectivity of oceanic response to wind forcing numerical experiments suggest that the intrinsic variability of the scs circulation accounts for this phenomenon based on the rossby basin mode theory this is explained by the interaction between the long westward propagating rossby waves and the short eastward propagating rossby waves

long term slip rate of the southern san andreas fault from 10be 26al surface exposure dating of an offset alluvial fan we determine the long term slip rate of the southern san andreas fault in the southeastern indio hills using 10 be and 26 al isotopes to date an offset alluvial fan surface field mapping complemented with topographic data air photos and satellite images allows precise determination of piercing points across the fault zone that are used to measure an offset of 565 80 m a total of 26 quartz rich cobbles from three different fan surfaces were collected and dated the tight cluster of nuclide concentrations from 19 samples out of 20 from the offset fan surface implies a simple exposure history negligible prior exposure and erosion and yields an age of 35 5 2 5 ka the long term slip rate of the san andreas fault south of biskra palms is thus 15 9 3 4 mm yr this rate is about 10 mm yr slower than geological 0 14 ka and short term geodetic estimates for this part of the san andreas fault implying changes in slip rate or in faulting behavior this result puts new constraints on the slip rate of the san jacinto and on the eastern california shear zone for the last 35 kyr our study shows that more sites along the major faults of southern california need to be targeted to better constrain the slip rates over different timescales

holocene left slip rate determined by cosmogenic surface dating on the xidatan segment of the kunlun fault qinghai china cosmogenic dating using in situ sup 26 al and sup 10 be in quartz pebbles from alluvial terrace surfaces constrains the late holocene slip rate on the xidatan segment of the kunlun fault in northeastern tibet two terrace risers offset by 24 3 and 33 4 m having respective ages of 1799 388 and 2914 471 yr imply a slip rate of 12 1 2 6 mm yr the full range of ages obtained le 22 8 k y most of them between 6 7 and 1 4 k y confirm that terrace deposition and incision hence landform evolution are modulated by post glacial climate change coupled with minimum offsets of 9 12 m this slip rate implies that great earthquakes m approximately 8 with a recurrence time of 800 1000 yr rupture the kunlun fault near 94 e

bounds on the holocene slip rate of the haiyuan fault north central china abstract we measured the offsets of six stream valleys of 30 to 90 m along the northwest southeast trending left lateral haiyuan strike slip fault in north central china minimum ages of these offsets were determined to estimate lower bounds for the holocene slip rate the most reliable bounds are 7 6 1 0 and 6 7 1 0 mm yr with three others that are smaller 3 4 0 7 3 5 0 9 and 4 1 0 4 mm yr and one large value 16 4 5 9 mm yr that we doubt thus the average holocene slip rate of the haiyuan fault is larger than 6 mm yr and probably exceeds 7 mm yr if the average slip rate of 5 to 10 mm yr for the quaternary period is applicable to the holocene epoch the average rate is 8 2 mm yr

low quaternary slip rate reconciles geodetic and geologic rates along the altyn tagh fault northwestern tibet for more than two decades the slip rate along the active left slip altyn tagh fault of northwestern tibet has been disputed with millennial rates reported to be as much as three times faster than those determined geodetically this problem is significant because the total offset plate boundary length and age of the altyn tagh fault make it the most important single structure accommodating india asia convergence north of the himalayas here we show that the central altyn tagh fault slipped at only 14 9 mm a over the past 4 6 ka by tightly bracketing the age of a displaced fluvial terrace riser at yuemake 88 51 e 38 19 n this result contradicts previous latest quaternary rates and is consistent with those derived from geodetic paleoseismic and geologic measurements and thus resolves the long standing dispute over the latest quaternary slip rate along the longest active strike slip fault in tibet

slip rate on the kunlun fault at hongshui gou and recurrence time of great events comparable to the 14 11 2001 mw 7 9 kokoxili earthquake abstract a field study of the surface rupture of the 14 november 2001 mw 7 9 kokoxili or kunlun shan earthquake near hongshui gou 35 9 n 92 2 e a site with exceptional geomorphic offsets long identified on spot images yields bounds on this earthquake return time and on the slip rate along the kusai hu segment of the kunlun fault measurements of the sinistral coseismic and cumulative offsets of four distinct strath terrace risers and of rill channels incised in the adjacent fan bajada complemented by post earthquake metric resolution satellite image restoration are 3 0 5 m 6 1 m 31 2 m 63 5 m and 110 10 m the smallest offset is unambiguously that of the 14 11 2001 earthquake the 31 and 63 m riser offsets which have thermoluminescence ages of 2885 285 and 5960 450 yr respectively imply an average slip rate of 10 0 1 5 mm yr almost identical to that found 200 km eastwards in xidatan using 10 be cosmogenic dating of surface pebbles the repetitive seismic slip 3 m implies an average recurrence time of 300 50 yrs for earthquakes comparable to the 14 11 2001 event this new data increases the body of evidence suggestive of local characteristic slip during large earthquakes and firmly corroborates the millennial eastward extrusion rate 1 cm yr of north central tibet relative to the qaidam

a simple tropical moist model applied to the 40 day wave the 40 day wave is a baroclinic eastward propagating disturbance commonly observed in the tropical atmosphere with a period that actually lies in the band 30 to 60 days its structure resembles an equatorially trapped kelvin wave predominantly with zonal wavenumber 1 in this paper a simple model with marginally stable moist static stability is used to investigate one possible mechanism for its appearance namely as the response to variable thermal forcing amplified by the effect of interactive latent heating the model has just one vertical baroclinic mode forced by prescribed heating and by interactively determined latent heating latent heating only occurs when and where there is low level convergence and moisture is tending to increase beyond some saturation level in such regions the static stability takes its moist value which is considerably less than the dry value acting in regions without precipitation analytic solutions are first provided for cases with static stability everywhere constant waves propagate more slowly when the moist value is used so the peak linear response to wave like thermal forcing essentially a resonant response occurs at longer periods than for dry static stability for dry conditions the period of a free kelvin wave with zonal wavenumber one is about 10 days but for wet conditions the period increases toward the 40 day range when static stability varies the model must be solved numerically solutions show that the increase in period predicted analytically is indeed realized even when precipitation is patchy and dry static stability is acting almost everywhere effectively the amplified waves travel at a speed consistent with the maintenance of their latent heating energy source eastward waves are prominent near the equator by analysing particular moisture dependent combinations of variables these eastward waves can be dynamically identified as kelvin waves saturation moisture content is closely linked to sea surface temperature the warm western pacific and indian oceans are regions of high atmospheric moisture content and hence of very low moist static stability this ocean temperature effect is studied using the simple model showing that intraseasonal waves are largest in such regions as observed

mjo initiation processes over the tropical indian ocean during dynamo cindy2011 abstracta multination joint field campaign called the dynamics of mjo cooperative indian ocean experiment on intraseasonal variability in year 2011 dynamo cindy2011 took place in the equatorial indian ocean io in late 2011 during the campaign period two strong mjo events occurred from the middle of october to the middle of december referred to as mjo i and mjo ii respectively both the events were initiated over the western equatorial indian ocean wio around 50 60 e using multiple observational data products era interim the ecmwf final analysis and nasa merra the authors unveil specific processes that triggered the mjo convection in the wio it is found that 10 days prior to mjo i initiation a marked large scale ascending motion anomaly appeared in the lower troposphere over the wio the cause of this intraseasonal vertical motion anomaly was attributed to anomalous warm advection by a cyclonic gyre anomaly over the northern io the mjo ii initiation was preceded by a low level specifi

influence of indian ocean dipole on boreal summer intraseasonal oscillations in a coupled general circulation model 1 the role of indian ocean dipole iod on poleward propagation of boreal summer intraseasonal oscillations bsiso is examined using long simulation of a coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation model the model sintex f1 simulates the salient features of bsiso realistically it is found that coherent incoherent poleward propagation of precipitation anomalies from 5 s to 25 n are observed during negative positive iod years the probable mechanisms behind such an anomaly in poleward propagation of bsiso in contrasting iod years are identified we find that the mean structure of meridional specific humidity distribution undergoes cardinal changes in contrasting iod years which in turn influences the meridional propagation of bsiso enhanced decreased air sea interaction in negative positive iod years also supports coherent incoherent poleward propagation of bsiso anomalies this study has important implications considering the critical role of bsiso in modulating the seasonal mean summer monsoon rainfall

explicit treatment of inheritance in dating depositional surfaces using in situ 10be and 26al we describe a new strategy for dating depositional landscape surfaces using in situ produced cosmogenic radionuclides crns that removes the complication of nuclide inheritance by clasts prior to depositon two amalgamated samples each consisting of 30 clasts one from the surface and one from a fixed depth in the subsurface constrain this crn inheritance and date the surface the inheritance may be used to estimate minimum exhumation rates and maximum transport times within the geomorphic system we test the technique using sup 10 be and sup 26 al to date the third fr3 of five terraces along the fremont river utah and the third wr3 of 15 along the wind river wyoming whereas effective ages based solely upon the surface samples yield 118 138 ka fr3 and 93 ka wr3 the subsurface samples reveal that inheritance accounts for 22 wr3 to 43 fr3 of the total crn concentration taking this into account yeilds terrace ages of nearly 61 81 ka for fr3 and nearly 67 76 ka for wr3 we explore the dependence of age estimates on the accumulation history of the terrace silt caps 22 refs 3 figs 1 tab

late quaternary deformation and slip rates in the northern san andreas fault zone at olema valley marin county california abstract quaternary sedimentary deposits along the structural depression of the san andreas fault saf zone north of san francisco in marin county provide an excellent record of rates and styles of neotectonic deformation in a location near where the greatest amount of horizontal offset was measured after the great 1906 san francisco earthquake a high resolution gravity survey in the olema valley was used to determine the depth to bedrock and the thickness of sediment fill along and across the saf valley in the gravity profile across the saf zone quaternary deposits are offset across the 1906 fault trace and truncated by the western and eastern boundary faults whose youthful activity was previously unknown the gravity profile parallel to the fault valley shows a basement surface that slopes northward toward an area of present day subsidence near the head of tomales bay surface and subsurface investigations of the late pleistocene olema creek formation qoc indicate that this area of subsidence was located further south during deposition of the qoc and that it has migrated northward since then localized subsidence has been replaced by localized contraction that has produced folding and uplift of the qoc this apparent alternation between transtension and transpression may be the result of a northward diverging fault geometry of fault strands that includes the valley bounding faults as well as the 1906 saf trace the vedanta marsh is a smaller example of localized subsidence in the fault zone between the 1906 saf trace and the western boundary fault analyses of holocene marsh sediments in cores and a paleoseismic trench indicate thickening and probably tilting toward the 1906 trace consistent with coseismic deformation observed at the site following the 1906 earthquake new age data and offset sedimentary and geomorphic features were used to calculate four late quaternary slip rate estimates for the saf at this latitude luminescence dates of 112 186 ka for the middle part of the olema creek formation qoc the oldest quaternary deposit in this part of the valley suggest a late pleistocene slip rate of 17 35 mm year which replaces the unit to a position adjacent to its sediment source area a younger alluvial fan deposit qqf basal age 30 ka is exposed in a quarry along the medial ridge of the fault valley this fan deposit has been truncated on its western side by dextral saf movement and west side down vertical movement that has created the vedanta marsh paleocurrent measurements clast compositions sediment facies distributions and soil characteristics show that the bear valley creek drainage now located northwest of the site supplied sediment to the fan which is now being eroded restoration of the drainage to its previous location provides an estimated slip rate of 25 mm year furthermore the bear valley creek drainage probably created a water gap located north of the qqf deposit during the last glacial maximum 18 ka the amount of offset between the drainage and the water gap yields an average slip rate of 21 30 mm year finally displacement of a 1000 year old debris lobe approximately 20 m from its hillside hollow along the medial ridge indicates a minimum late holocene slip rate of 21 25 mm year similarity of the late pleistocene rates to the holocene slip rate and to previous rates obtained in paleoseismic trenches in the area indicates that the rates may not have changed over the past 30 ka and perhaps the past 200 400 ka stratigraphic and structural observations also indicate that valley bounding faults were active in the late pleistocene and suggest the need for further study to evaluate their continued seismic potential

spatial variations in slip rate along the death valley fish lake valley fault system determined from lidar topographic data and cosmogenic 10be geochronology 1 the death valley fish lake valley fault zone dv flvfz is a prominent dextral fault system in the eastern california shear zone ecsz combining offset measurements determined with lidar topographic data for two alluvial fans with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide 10be ages from the fan surfaces yields a late pleistocene slip rate of 2 5 to 3 mm yr for the northern part of the dv flvfz in fish lake valley these rates are slower than the late pleistocene rate determined for the system in northern death valley indicating that slip rates decrease northward along this major fault zone when summed with the slip rate from the white mountains fault the other major fault in this part of the ecsz our results suggest that either significant deformation is accommodated on structures east of fish lake valley or that rates of seismic strain accumulation and release have not remained constant over late pleistocene to holocene time

cosmogenic nuclide evidence for low weathering and denudation in the wet tropical highlands of sri lanka 1 some of the lowest weathering and erosion rates in any mountain range in the world have been measured using cosmogenic nuclides in the steep humid tropical highlands of sri lanka the total preanthropogenic denudation rates were measured in creek sediments and soil samples from unperturbed rain forest sites bedrock from mountain crests and bedrock from inselbergs denudation rates are in the range of 5 30 t km 2 yr 1 2 11 mm ky 1 these rates average denudation over the last 50 250 ky weathering exports in rivers draining the mountainous central highlands show that silicate weathering rates are also low varying from 5 to 20 t km 2 yr 1 today 2 7 mm ky 1 but they represent a significant fraction of the total denudation all these observations run contrary to the conventional geomorphologic and geochemical wisdom that would predict rapid erosion for highlands of high relief temperatures and precipitation we speculate that the high relief in sri lanka represents the remnant of a geomorphic block that was uplifted during rifting at 130 ma or even earlier and that was reduced to the interior of the island by rapid receding of escarpments after continental breakup it is possible that throughout this history hillslopes where not exposing bare bedrock were protected by thick weathered profiles such clay rich layers would inhibit silicate weathering by shielding bedrock from weathering agents in the absence of landscape rejuvenation physical erosion rates are low and fresh mineral surfaces are not being supplied the observation that wet steep tropical highlands can have low rates of rock weathering and erosion has some potentially profound implications for the long term controls of atmospheric co2 budgets high temperature and precipitation which are much invoked though controversial agents for silicate dissolution and co2 drawdown become ineffective in promoting weathering in areas that are not tectonically active

quaternary morphotectonic mapping of the wadi araba and implications for the tectonic activity of the southern dead sea fault 1 the dead sea strike slip fault accommodates the northward motion of arabia relative to sinai at a rate of 5 mm yr the southern segment of the fault the wadi araba fault runs along a valley blanketed in quaternary sediments we first focused on understanding the relative and absolute timing of emplacement of the alluvial surfaces we then determined the probable source of the sediments before assessing their lateral offset to constrain the late pleistocene fault slip rate seven successive morphostratigraphic levels were identified at two sites we recognized an alluvial sequence of five to seven successive levels with ages getting younger northward a pattern consistent with the western block moving southward relative to two fixed feeding channels located to the east surface samples were collected for10be cosmogenic radionuclide dating fans f3 and f5 were found to be synchronous from site to site at 102 26 ka and 324 22 ka respectively while f4 could be dated at 163 19 ka at one site only these are minimum ages assuming no erosion of the alluvial surfaces at least two of these periods are correlated with wet periods that are regionally well documented further analyses of tectonic offsets are affected in most cases by large uncertainties due to the configuration of the sites they indicate maximum offsets of 5 5 km for the oldest possibly 1 ma old surfaces they lead to bracketing of the fault slip rate between 5 and 12 mm yr with preferred values of 5 7 mm yr for the last 300 ka

insar observations of low slip rates on the major faults of western tibet two contrasting views of the active deformation of asia dominate the debate about how continents deform i the deformation is primarily localized on major faults separating crustal blocks or ii deformation is distributed throughout the continental lithosphere in the first model western tibet is being extruded eastward between the major faults bounding the region surface displacement measurements across the western tibetan plateau using satellite radar interferometry insar indicate that slip rates on the karakoram and altyn tagh faults are lower than would be expected for the extrusion model and suggest a significant amount of internal deformation in tibet

late quaternary and present day rates of slip along the altyn tagh fault northern margin of the tibetan plateau 1 both global positioning system gps measurements and studies of late quaternary faulting are consistent with a slip rate of 10 mm yr along the central segment of the altyn tagh fault and a systematic decrease in that rate toward the eastern end of the fault dates of terraces above and below laterally offset terrace risers yield bounds on quaternary slip rates that range from those that agree with gps measurements to values as much as three times faster we argue that offset terrace risers that are protected by topography upstream of them are more closely dated by the age of the upper terrace than by that of the lower terrace in some cases valleys upstream of the fault have been incised into bedrock and few if any terrace risers can be seen within the valleys such streams debouch onto alluviated floodplains or fans that become incised presumably during climate changes to create terrace risers the terrace risers are then displaced so that they lie downslope from bedrock ridges on the upstream side of the fault and thus the risers become protected from further incision in such cases dates of upper terraces should more closely approximate the ages of the risers than those of lower terraces such dates yield slip rates of 10 mm yr in the central segment of the fault and decreasing rates eastward although we cannot with certainty rule out the higher slip rates along the altyn tagh fault our analysis does show that viable interpretations consistent with gps measurements are more likely at least along some segments of the fault not only do these rates support the view that the tibetan plateau deforms internally by slip on a distributed network of faults in the shallow brittle crust and hence behaves as a continuum at depth but the gradual decrease toward the east also shows that the altyn tagh fault does not separate two effectively rigid lithospheric plates correspondingly the relatively low slip rate and the eastward decrease in slip rate suggest that the altyn tagh fault does not transfer a significant portion of the convergence between india and asia into northeastward extrusion of the tibetan plateau thus large scale extrusion of crustal material in india s path into eurasia seems to be limited largely to the confines of the tibetan plateau

pleistocene alluvial deposits dating along frontal thrust of changhua fault in western taiwan the cosmic ray exposure point of view abstract to tackle the history of active thrusts it is necessary to open the observation window on time scales on the order of 104 105 years by studying the surface morphologies resulting from their activities because fluvial systems are particularly sensitive to recent environmental changes geomorphic features such as alluvial terraces are frequently used as markers to gauge tectonic deformation together with the measurement of cumulative displacements the chronological framework of emplacement and abandonment of these geomorphic markers is thus fundamental to determine long term fault slip rates in taiwan the geomorphic features associated with fault activity have been studied in detail with a high level of resolution however the use of deformed and partially preserved alluvial terraces is often hampered by the absence of well documented ages the purpose of this paper is two fold first we take the opportunity to review the chronological constraints that have been published in taiwan so far second we present how the cosmogenic dating method in situ produced 10be can be used to constraint the chronological framework of alluvial deposits over a pleistocene time scale thanks to a comparison of our cosmogenic derived ages with existing data we present a consistent regional chronological framework for the pakua tadu area along the changhua fault one of the most active frontal thrusts in the western foothills of the taiwan mountain belt we also discuss its relationships with global eustatism and its tectonic implications for the timing of propagation of the deformation front during the last 450 kyr