Active Tectonics, Structural Geology, and Quantitative Geomorphology!
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The goal of my dissertation is to understand the roll that strike slip faults play in intra-continental deformation, specifically focusing on Central Asian tectonics. The Indo-Eruasian collision, initiated ~50 Ma, resulted in the uplift of the Tibetan plateau, extrusion of the plateau and subsequent development of major bounding strike slip faults. These faults are shown with red lines in the image above. Along with these bounding faults smaller plateau interior faults are believed to have participated for shorter more eposodic durrations. Due to the complexities of working in China a significant amount of these faults has yet tonbe mapped. Thus far I have one active project along the Altyn Tagh fault Xinjiang, China (approximate location of field area shown within blue box) and am in the process of developing a new project in the Tien Shan, possibly along the Talas Ferghana. |
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The Altyn Tagh project is a joint collaboration between Chinese scientists from the Beijing Institust of Geomechanics, the University of California, Davis, and Arizona State University. This collaboration is a field-based project along the Altyn Tagh fault Xinjiang and Qinghai, China. The goals of this project are to define the late Holocene slip history and to interpret the formation of the Cenozoic Qaidam Basin. The portion of this collaboration that I will focus on is to use fault-trace mapping an paleoseismic methods to determine the history of the fault rupture over the last 2,000 years. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation. Paleoseismic investigation of the Altyn Tagh fault will characterize the size, age, offset and magnitude of the most recent surface-breaking ruptures along the central reach of the fault, approximately located between lat lon 37.6 deg, 86.5 deg and 38 deg, 88.5 deg. |
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The Tien Shan is located in the Northwestern region of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan. Previous work by J. Ramon Arrowsmith, Andrey Korjenkov and Chris Crosby Active Tectonics of the Tien Shan focused primarially on reverse faults of the Tien Shan. |
Last updated: June 13, 2008