NEOTECTONICS AND PALEOSEISMICITY OF THE LOWER KATUN' VALLEY ( Gorny Altai )
E.V. Deeva, I.D. Zol'nikovb, A.P. Borodovskyc, and S.V. Gol'tsovab
aA.A. Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
bV.S. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
cInstitute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pr. Lavrent'eva 17, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: Neotectonics, seismites, Late Pleistocene, burial mounds, Iron Age, earthquakes, Gorny Altai
Pages: 883-894
Abstract
The lower Katun' area has a complex neotectonic framework, with the largest fault zone of Katun' consisting of several en-echelon graben segments. Late Pleistocene sediments that fill the Katun' Fault bear signature of earthquake-induced soft-sediment deformation (seismites). Deformation due to seismic triggers can be discriminated from nonseismic one on the basis of special features and be related to prehistoric earthquakes according to a number of criteria. The observed deformation inside and outside burial mounds of the Chultukov Log-1 group may result from an earthquake that occurred at the end of the first millennium BC. Fault scarps in Late Pleistocene sediments, as well as deformed Iron Age tomb patterns, indicate that the Katun' lower reaches can have experienced past earthquakes of intensity at least 5 or 6 and magnitudes from 4.5 to 6.0.
|
