Active Tectonics Revealed by River Profiles along the Puqu Fault

Water

Ping Lu²  Yu Shang¹ 

[1] School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Nanchen Road 333, Shanghai 200444, China;College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Tongji University, Siping Road 1239, Shanghai 200092, China; E-Mail:

关键词: stream network;    river profiles;    channel equilibrium;    tectonics;    ASTER DEM;    Puqu Fault;    Southern Tibet;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w7041628

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The Puqu Fault is situated in Southern Tibet. It is influenced by the eastward extrusion of Northern Tibet and carries the clockwise rotation followed by the southward extrusion. Thus, the Puqu Fault is bounded by the principal dynamic zones and the tectonic evolution remains active alongside. This study intends to understand the tectonic activity in the Puqu Fault Region from the river profiles obtained from the remotely sensed satellite imagery. A medium resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM, 20 m) was generated from an Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) stereo pair of images and the stream network in this region was extracted from this DEM. The indices of slope and drainage area were subsequently calculated from this ASTER DEM. Based on the stream power law, the area-slope plots of the streams were delineated to derive the indices of channel concavity and steepness, which are closely related to tectonic activity. The results show the active tectonics varying significantly along the Puqu Fault, although the potential influence of glaciations may exist. These results are expected to be useful for a better understanding of tectonic evolution in Southeastern Tibet.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.