No abstract

The 15 October 2013 magnitude (MW) 7.2 Bohol earthquake produced an ~50‐km‐long, ~12‐km‐wide northeast trending zone of uplift with an ~8‐km‐long discontinuous ground rupture indicating predominantly reverse‐slip movement on a southeast dipping fault. Documentation of the nearly continuous northern terminus of the 2013 Bohol earthquake ground rupture revealed its association to preexisting scarps of the previously unmapped, Quaternary‐active North Bohol Fault. Trenching across the rupture at four sites not only reveals the geometry and kinematics of the fault but also shows at least one or two pre‐2013 surface rupturing events. Onshore geologic mapping and offshore seismic reflection profiles demonstrate the presence of an island‐wide, northeast‐southwest trending fold‐and‐thrust belt through which deformation related to the regional shortening across the Visayan Sea Basin in the central Philippines is likely distributed.

Situated within the interior of the Central Anatolian Plateau (Turkey), the 200-km-long Tuzgölü extensional fault zone offers first-order constraints on the timing and pattern of regional deformation and uplift. In this study, we analyze the morphometrics of catchments along the Tuzgölü range-front fault and the parallel, basinward Hamzalı fault using a variety of measured morphometric indicators coupled with regional geomorphic observations and longitudinal profile analysis. In addition, we use field and remote mapping to constrain the geometry of two key marker beds, the Pliocene Kızılkaya ignimbrite and Kışladaǧ limestone, in order to investigate deformation in the footwall of the Tuzgölü fault zone. The marker beds form a broad arch along the footwall of the fault, with greatest cumulative displacement along the central part of the fault zone, suggesting early Pliocene extensional reactivation of the Tuzgölü fault with a typical fault-displacement profile. However, a change in deformation pattern is marked by transient knick­points along river channels; morphometric indicators sensitive to shorter (1−3 Ma) time scales, including river steepness, basin elongation, and mountain front sinuosity, indicate an overall southeastward increase in footwall uplift rate of the Tuzgölü fault zone, which could reflect block rotation or interaction with the Hasan Dag volcano. Basin asymmetry and basin-fault azimuth measurements indicate north-northwest tilting of footwall catchments, which may be linked to regional tilting across the Central Anatolian Plateau interior. Varying patterns of spatial and temporal deformation along the length of the Tuzgölü fault zone are likely due to the interference of crustal- and lithospheric-scale processes, such as rotation of crustal blocks, extrusion of the Anatolian microplate, crustal heating, gravitational collapse associated with plateau uplift, and mantle-driven vertical displacements.

Most of the permanent deformation in the Pampean Flat slab segment of the central Andes is taken up at the Andean Orogenic Front in Argentina, a narrow zone between the Eastern Precordillera and Sierras Pampeanas that comprises one of the world's most seismically active thrust zones. Active faults and folds in the region have been extensively mapped but still largely lack information on style and rates of deformation, which is essential for understanding the distribution of regional strain and estimating the seismic potential of individual faults. Structural, geomorphic, and 36 Cl cosmogenic radionuclide surface exposure age methods are used to focus on key sites along the 30-km-long La Rinconada Fault Zone in this region of west-central Argentina, which is~15 km away from the highly populated (~500,000) city of San Juan, to define a late Quaternary average shortening rate of 0.41 ± 0.01 mm/year. This slip rate is the same order of magnitude, but slightly lower than nearby similar east dipping Eastern Precordillera faults including the La Laja and Las Tapias Faults. Relatively low slip rates are interpreted as being a consequence of distributed deformation between the latitude of the La Rinconada Fault Zone (31 and 32°S), as compared to between latitudes 32 to 33°S where deformation appears to be focused on fewer structures, including the Las Peñas and La Cal Thrust Faults. The La Rinconada Fault Zone is capable of generating earthquakes of M w 6.6-7.2, but further investigations are required to determine timing and recurrence intervals of discrete events.