P. Tapponnier

Nanyang Technological University | ntu · Earth Observatory of Singapore

Following the India-Asia collision, continental blocks were extruded along large sinistral strike-slip faults. The longest such fault, the Ailao Shan - Red River shear zone (ASRR), separated Indochina (Sundaland) from South China. The ~1000 km-long, active Red River fault (RRF) extends along the north side of the Ailao Shan and currently exhibits a...

The hydrological conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Eastern Mediterranean have long been debated. In particular, very little is known about the development of high-altitude glaciers in this region. In the present study, morphological and sedimentological evidence, such as U-shape valleys, glacial cirques, and morainic ridges, are use...

Fault slip rates are critical to quantify continental deformation. Those along the Karakax fault (northwestern Altyn Tagh Fault: ATF) have been debated, even though it is one of Tibet’s most outstanding active faults. At Taersa, using LiDAR measurements of terrace and fan riser offsets (~6 to ~500 m) and 10Be/26Al dating of alluvial surfaces (<210...

Fault slip rates are critical to quantify continental deformation. Those along the Karakax fault (northwestern Altyn Tagh Fault: ATF) have been debated, even though it is one of Tibet's most outstanding active faults. At Taersa, using LiDAR measurements of terrace and fan riser offsets (∼6 to ∼500 m) and ¹⁰Be/²⁶Al dating of alluvial surfaces (<210...

The presence of ~NS-trending rifts within the Tibetan Plateau attests that it is undergoing ~EW extension. In southern Tibet, the total extension rate, distributed across seven main rifts over a distance of ~1000 km, has been inferred to amount to about half of the shortening rate across the Himalayas. Quantifying the late Quaternary extension rate...

Published slip distribution models, based on geodetic, seismological and tsunami data, of the Mw 7.8, 2010 Mentawai tsunami earthquake offshore south-central Sumatra, suggest that the large tsunami wave was generated by a narrow swath of high seafloor uplift along the accretionary wedge front, implying higher vertical throw than that consistent wit...

The northern Indian Ocean has been widely recognized as an area of broadly distributed deformation within the composite India‐Australia‐Capricorn plate, hosting several diffuse boundary zones and a diffuse triple junction. The occurrence, along reactivated fracture zones, of the exceptionally large (Mw = 8.6 and Mw = 8.2) 2012 Wharton Basin strike‐...

Although the M, 1950 Assam earthquake endures as the largest continental earthquake ever recorded, its exact source and mechanism remain contentious. In this paper, we jointly analyze the spatial distributions of reappraised aftershocks and landslides, and provide new field evidence for its hitherto unknown surface rupture extent along the Mishmi a...

The Charnath Khola is a large river crossing the Himalayan thrust system in the region devastated by the great M 8.3 1934 Bihar-Nepal earthquake. Fluvial terraces are abandoned along the river and at the base of a ~20 m-high cumulative thrust escarpment. A trench across the fault scarp exposed Siwalik mudstone/siltstone overthrusting Quaternary uni...

Volcanic seismicity conduit necking DEM modeling Volcanic seismicity during silicic spine eruptions often involves recurrent excitation of similar sources at stationary depth just beneath the crater. The mechanics of volcanic spine extrusion may be compared to those of high-temperature, industrial metal working. We thus use slip-line field theory t...

Continuous sedimentation and detailed stratigraphy are key parameters for a complete paleo-earthquake record. Here, we present a new paleoseismological study across the main strike-slip fault branch of the Dead Sea fault in Lebanon. We aim to expand the current knowledge on local paleoseismicity and seismic behavior of strike-slip plate boundary fa...

The Mw 6.0 Mt. Kinabalu earthquake of 2015 was a complete (and deadly) surprise, because it occurred well away from the nearest plate boundary in a region of very low historical seismicity. Our seismological, space geodetic, geomorphological, and field investigations show that the earthquake resulted from rupture of a northwest-dipping normal fault...

The recent dramatic increase in millimeter-to centimeter-resolution topographic datasets obtained via multi-view photogrammetry raises the possibility of mapping detailed offset geomorphology and constraining the spatial characteristics of active faults. Here, for the first time, we applied this new method to acquire high-resolution imagery and gen...

The Western Kunlun mountain range is a slowly converging intra-continental orogen where deformation rates are too low to be properly quantified from geodetic techniques. This region has recorded little seismicity, but the recent July 2015 (Mw 6.4) Pishan earthquake shows that this mountain range remains seismic. To quantify the rate of active defor...

The deformation at well-defined, narrow plate boundaries depends on the relative plate motion, but how the deformation takes place within a distributed plate boundary zone remains a conundrum. This was confirmed by the seismological analyses of the 2012 great Wharton Basin earthquakes [moment magnitude (M w) 8.6], which suggested the rupture of sev...

A magnetotelluric (MT) campaign has been conducted in March 2016 north of Kathmandu, in the area of the 1996 and 1999-2000 campaigns by Lemonnier, Marquis and collaborators. MT response and induction arrows confirm the existence of a deep conductive structure under the front of the higher Himalaya with small discrepancy between 1996 and 2016.

As the boundary between the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau and the Tarim Basin, the active left-lateral strike-slip Altyn Tagh Fault (ATF) is a first-order structure accommodating the ongoing continental collision between India and Asia and extends from northwestern Tibet to eastern Gansu Province with a whole length of ~1600 km. It is regard...

Assessment of seismic hazard relies on estimates of how large an area of a tectonic fault could potentially rupture in a single earthquake. Vital information for these forecasts includes which areas of a fault are locked and how the fault is segmented. Much research has focused on exploring downdip limits to fault rupture from chemical and thermal...

The ongoing collision of India with Asia is partly accommodated by slip on the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). The 25 April 2015, Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake is the most recent major event to rupture the MHT, which dips gently northward beneath central Nepal. Although the geology of the range has been studied for decades, fundamental aspects of its deep...

Oblique convergence across Tibet leads to slip partitioning with the coexistence of strike-slip, normal and thrust motion on major fault systems. A key point is to understand and model how faults interact and accumulate strain at depth. Here, we extract ground deformation across the Haiyuan Fault restraining bend, at the northeastern boundary of th...

We sampled six coral microatolls that recorded the relative sea level changes over the last 230 years east of Martinique, on fringing reefs in protected bays. The microatolls are cup-shaped, which is characteristic of corals that have been experiencing submergence. X-ray analysis of coral slices and reconstructions of the highest level of survival...

Additional GPS referencing, InSAR processing and modeling methods.

We sampled six coral microatolls that recorded the relative sea level changes over the last 230 years east of Martinique, on fringing reefs in protected bays. The microatolls are cup-shaped, which is characteristic of corals that have been experiencing submergence. X-ray analysis of coral slices and reconstructions of the highest level of survival...

In 1255, 1344, and 1408 AD, then again in 1833, 1934, and 2015, large earthquakes, devastated Kathmandu. The 1255 and 1934 surface ruptures have been identified east of the city, along comparable segments of the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT). Whether the other two pairs of events were similar is unclear. Taking into account charcoal's age inheritance,...

Poster presented to the Annual EOS meeting 2016

The Sumatra subduction zone is one of the most seismically active subduction zones. Although there have been three Mw≥8.4 earthquakes in the region, including the disastrous 2004 Mw=9.2 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, a 500 km long patch around Mentawai Islands is still locked and could produce a large megathrust earthquake. If the rupture propagates t...

Several different historical records allude to a disastrous tsunami on the southwestern Taiwan coast sometime between 1781 and 1782, with a reported death toll of more than 40,000. Despite consistent reports from southwest Taiwan no corroborative information exists for neighboring shorelines in southeast China or northwest Luzon, Philippines, and a...

AGU Fall 2015

Insight into the spatial and temporal changes of slip-rate is essential to understand the kinematic role of large strike-slip faults in continental collision zones. Geodetic and geologic rates from present to several million years ago along the Karakorum fault range from 0 to 11 mm/yr. Here, we determine the first late Quaternary slip-rate at the s...

We improve constraints on the slip distribution and geometry of faults involved in the complex, multi-segment, Mw 8.6 April 2012 Wharton Basin earthquake sequence by joint inversion of high-rate GPS data from the Sumatran GPS Array (SuGAr), teleseismic observations, source-time-functions from broadband surface waves, and far-field static GPS displa...

The return times of large Himalayan earthquakes are poorly constrained. Despite historical devastation of cities along the mountain range, definitive links between events and specific segments of the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) are not established, and paleo-seismological records have not documented the occurrence of several similar events at the sam...

The Al Hoceima Mw 6.4 earthquake of 24 February 2004 that occurred in the eastern Rif region of Morocco already hit by a large event in May 1994 (Mw 5.9) has been followed by numerous aftershocks in the months following the event. The aftershock sequence has been monitored by a temporary network of 17 autonomous seismic stations during 15 days (28...

The Red Sea main trough is underlain by thick sheets of Middle Miocene salt, which are deformed into a variety of diapirs due to lateral salt movement from the margins. The salt diapirs are separated by syn-kinematic mini-basins that are filled with interbedded clastic and evaporitic sediments. Offshore seismic surveys reveal an extensive shallow u...

A new marine geophysical survey on the Saudi Arabian side of the Red Sea confirms early inferences that ~ 2/3 of the eastern Red Sea is floored by oceanic crust. Most seismic profiles south of 24°N show a strongly reflective, landward-deepening volcanic basement up to ~ 100 km east of the axial ridge, beneath thick evaporitic deposits. This positio...

A high resolution aeromagnetic survey over the Saudi Arabian side of the Red Sea confirms the existence of consistent magnetic anomaly patterns, continuous from 16 to 24°N, and episodic up to 28°N, typical of slow to ultraslow spreading centers. The older Saudi-Sudanese aeromagnetic survey shows that these anomalies are symmetrical between 18 and 2...

Field evidence for syn-deformation migmatization and crystallization along the Karakorum fault contradicts the study of Wang et al. (2012). The ages of such magmatic rocks provide minimum ages for the onset of deformation at ˜23 Ma in North Ayilari and ˜19 Ma in Tangtse. The onset of deformation at 12 Ma in the Ayilari range inferred by Wang et al....

It is unclear where plate boundary thrusts generate giant rather than great earthquakes. Along the Himalayas, the source sizes and recurrence times of large seismic events are particularly uncertain, since no surface signatures were found for those that shook the range in the twentieth century. Here we challenge the consensus that these events rema...

It is unclear where plate boundary thrusts generate giant rather than great earthquakes. Along the Himalayas, the source sizes and recurrence times of large seismic events are particularly uncertain, since no surface signatures were found for those that shook the range in the twentieth century. Here we challenge the consensus that these events rema...

The Fuyun Fault is a typical right-lateral strike-slip fault in Altay region where the crustal strain rate is very low. Field observations and restoration of horizontal offsets from the 3D LiDAR data obtained from 3 sites along the Funyun Fault further confirm that the average coseismic right-lateral slip of the 1931 Fuyun earthquake is (6.3±1.2) m...

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 determ...

Morphochronologic slip-rates on the Altyn Tagh Fault (ATF) along the southern front of the Pingding Shan at 90.5°E are determined by cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) dating of seven offset terraces at two sites. The terraces are defined based upon morphology, elevation and dating, together with fieldwork and high-resolution satellite analysis. The maj...

The principles of plate tectonics help explorers understand and evaluate hydrocarbon plays. Since the start of the 21st century, these ideas have been successfully applied to presalt basins and turbidite fans along the coasts of South America and western Africa. Guided by global plate tectonics, exploration companies are applying winning play strat...

Understanding the interaction between tectonics, climate and erosion is key to unravel the geodynamic evolution of rapidly evolving landscapes. Normal faulting along the Ama Drime and fluvial incision of the Arun river are used to better describe the recent evolution of the south-central Tibetan plateau. The Arun catchment can be separated in two p...

High-resolution Quickbird satellite images were used to map co-seismic slip distributions along the rupture of the Ms 7.9, 11/08/1931, Fuyun earthquake in Northern Xinjiang. This 160 km long right-lateral surface rupture is divided into 3 main segments. 290 geomorphic offset reconstructions constrain the average, 1931 co-seismic displacement to be...

Tectonically offset geomorphic markers such as stream channels, terrace risers, alluvial fan surfaces and other types of ridges and troughs record the surface signature of successive earthquakes on active faults. Increasingly detailed 3D surface measurements, together with multiple age constraints, now yield a much-improved understanding of the lon...