What type of fault is the Longmenshan Fault?

What type of fault is the Longmenshan Fault?

The Longmenshan Fault (Chinese: 龙门山断层) is a thrust fault which runs along the base of the Longmen Mountains in Sichuan province in southwestern China.

What were the causes of the Sichuan earthquake?

The quake was caused by the collision of the Indian-Australian and Eurasian plates along the 155-mile- (249-km-) long Longmenshan Fault, a thrust fault in which the stresses produced by the northward-moving Indian-Australian plate shifted a portion of the Plateau of Tibet eastward.

Is Sichuan on a fault line?

The main area for earthquakes to occur within Sichuan is about 300 km long and located west at the Sichuan Basin, along the northeast alignment of Longmenshan Fault line (Cui et al., 2011).

Is there a fault line in China?

The Xianshuihe fault system is a major active sinistral (left-lateral) strike-slip fault zone in southwestern China, at the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. It has been responsible for many major earthquakes, and is one of the most seismically active fault zones in this part of China.

How was the Longmenshan fault formed?

Sichuan earthquake of 2008 along the 155-mile- (249-km-) long Longmenshan Fault, a thrust fault in which the stresses produced by the northward-moving Indian-Australian plate shifted a portion of the Plateau of Tibet eastward.

Is Tacoma on a fault line?

The Tacoma Fault, just north of the city of Tacoma, Washington, is an active east–west striking north dipping reverse fault with approximately 35 miles (56 km) of identified surface rupture.

Why does China get earthquakes?

The collision of India with the rest of Asia has led to seismic activity throughout western China, particularly in Tibet and the Yunnan, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces. However these regions in comparison with Eastern China have a low population density.

How much damage did the Sichuan earthquake cause?

At 2:28 pm on May 12, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake measuring 7.9 or 8 on the Richter scale struck Sichuan Province, killing around 90,000 people and injuring nearly 363,000, destroying more than 15 million homes, leaving 10 million homeless and 1.5 million displaced and causing more than $20 billion in damage.

Is China earthquake prone?

China, as a matter of fact, is a country with many earthquakes. Ever since 1900, over 550,000 people died in earthquakes in China, which takes up 53% of the total casualties in earthquakes around the world.

How many faults does China have?

China has confronted in the past two decades five of the eight fault lines that the authors consider (unemployment, corruption, water resources, HIV/AIDS, and financial fragility), and, nonetheless, it has sustained high rates of economic growth.

What type of rocks are found in the Yingxiu–Beichuan Fault?

Petrological and structural analyses of the cores allowed the identification of fault-related rocks in the Yingxiu–Beichuan fault (fault gouge, cataclasite, and fault breccia), and the Principle Slip Zone (PSZ) location of the Wenchuan earthquake was determined.

Where is the co-seismic slip plane of the Wenchuan earthquake?

The co-seismic slip plane of the Wenchuan earthquake at depth (corresponding to the Yingxiu–Beichuan fault zone at the outcrop), as well as its PSZ, was expected to be located at the bottom of the fault zone (at 759 m-depth).

What is the Wenchuan fault scientific drilling project?

The Wenchuan Fault Scientific Drilling project (WFSD) is the third drilling project into fault zones. The first borehole drilling (WFSD-1) started just 178 days after the earthquake, on November 6th 2008, and was completed by July 12th 2009, with a total depth of 1201.15 m and 95.4% of core recovery.