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Science 21 January 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5708, pp. 411 - 414
DOI: 10.1126/science.1105466
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Reports

Slip-Rate Measurements on the Karakorum Fault May Imply Secular Variations in Fault Motion

M.-L. Chevalier,1,2 F. J. Ryerson,2* P. Tapponnier,1 R. C. Finkel,2 J. Van Der Woerd,3 Li Haibing,4 Liu Qing5

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.

1 Laboratoire de Tectonique, Mécanique de la Lithosphère, Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 7578, CNRS, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.
2 Insitute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
3 Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, UMR 7516, CNRS, Strasbourg, France.
4 Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China.
5 Total Exploration China, Total-Fina-Elf, Beijing, 100004, China.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ryerson{at}llnl.gov

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RECENT PAPERS.
(2006)
Geological Society of America Special Papers 415, vii-xii
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Comment on "Slip-Rate Measurements on the Karakorum Fault May Imply Secular Variations in Fault Motion".
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Response to Comment on "Slip-Rate Measurements on the Karakorum Fault May Imply Secular Variations in Fault Motion".
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