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Rupture of deep faults in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and uplift of the Longmen Shan

Nature Geoscience volume 4, pages 634–640 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

At the Longmen Shan, the eastern flank of the Tibetan Plateau rises 6,000 m above the Sichuan basin within a distance of just 100 km. The mechanisms responsible for building this remarkable topographic contrast are debated. Before the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the Longmen Shan had experienced no documented large earthquakes and exhibited minimal shortening of the crust, leading to the proposal that flow of weak rock in the lower crust may instead drive inflation of the crust. Here we use high-resolution geodetic data to explore fault geometry, as well as the pattern of strain accumulation and release associated with the Wenchuan earthquake. We find that most of the earthquake slip occurred in the shallow crust, accommodated by two steeply dipping fault planes. We suggest that the maximization of slip in shallow crustal layers was caused by the accumulation of strain energy left over from past blind earthquakes that did not rupture the surface. Furthermore, we document slip of about 2–6 m on a deep, sub-horizontal décollement fault that extends for 60 km beneath the Longmen Shan, implying that east Tibet has been thrust over the Sichuan basin. We conclude that infrequent, large earthquakes do accommodate crustal shortening across the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, lending less support to the hypothesis that inflation of the lower crust uplifts the Longmen Shan.

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Figure 1: Tectonic setting and surface deformation inferred from GPS measurements.
Figure 2: Slip distribution inverted from the surface displacements.
Figure 3: Relationship between slip distribution and seismicity.
Figure 4: Comparison between geologic surface rupture and geodetic slip models.

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Change history

  • 02 August 2011

    In the version of this Article originally published online, in the key of Fig. 3a, the Mw value for point (5) should have read 6.9. This has now been corrected in all versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

Z. Nie, Z. Jia, W. Wang and B. Zhao took field observations. H. Liao, M. Wang, F. Du, A. Zhu, J. Chen, Q-C. Wang, H. Liu and C. Shi are greatly appreciated for their kind assistance. We are grateful to the UNAVCO for providing 6 GPS receivers. JAXA provided us free SAR data. This work has benefited from discussions with X. Wen, Y. Ran, X. Xu, H. Li and C. Ji. The project was supported by CEA, MOST, MOE, and NSFC (40674009, 40774014, 40874003) through grants to W.Q., Q.X. and X.C. We thank E. Hetland and Y. Klinger for their comments, which improved the manuscript. This is Institute of Seismology contribution: No. 482.

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Author notes

  1. Wang Qi, Qiao Xuejun and Lan Qigui: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Space Research, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Wang Qi, Yang Shaomin & Chen Gang

  2. Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration & Hubei Earthquake Administration, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Wang Qi, Qiao Xuejun, Yang Shaomin & Tan Kai

  3. First Institution of Survey Engineering, Sichuan Bureau of Surveying & Mapping, Chengdu, 610100, China

    Lan Qigui

  4. Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775, USA

    Jeffrey Freymueller

  5. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Xu Caijun

  6. Survey Engineering Institution, Sichuan Earthquake Administration, Ya’an, 625000, China

    Yang Yonglin

  7. National Infrastructure of Earthquake Centre, Beijing, 100036, China

    You Xinzhao

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Contributions

W.Q., Q.X., L.Q. and C.G. led GPS surveys. Y.X. coordinated the GPS surveys within the CMONOC. X.C., Y.Y. and W.Q. organized resurveys of triangulation network. Y.S. and W.Q. analysed GPS data. Q.X. and W.Q. processed SAR images. W.Q. and T.K. performed the modelling. W.Q. and J.F. analysed the slip model results and wrote the paper. W.Q. organized the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wang Qi, Jeffrey Freymueller or Xu Caijun.

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Qi, W., Xuejun, Q., Qigui, L. et al. Rupture of deep faults in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and uplift of the Longmen Shan. Nature Geosci 4, 634–640 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1210

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