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Russian Geology and Geophysics

2016 year, number 2

PALEOSEISMOLOGICAL STUDIES IN THE EPICENTRAL AREA OF THE 1911 KEMIN EARTHQUAKE (northern Tien Shan)

E.V. Deev1,2, A.M. Korzhenkov3
1A.A. Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
2Novosibirsk State University, ul. Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
3O.Y. Schmidt Institute of Earth Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Bol'shaya Gruzinskaya 10, Moscow, 123995, Russia
Keywords: 1911 Kemin earthquake, paleoseismicity, fault scarp, Aksu fault, Tien Sha

Abstract

The area of the Chon-Aksu and Kichi-Aksu grabens abounds in seismic deformation produced by historic and prehistoric events, among which the great Kemin (Kebin) earthquake of 1911, with a magnitude of Ms ≈ 8 and a shaking intensity of I 0 = 10-11, generated by the Aksu fault. Trenching across a fault scarp of the 1911 event has revealed signatures of reverse slip resulted from another earthquake that occurred about 3000 years ago. Traces of a large event at ~12,700 yr BP appear in sediments of a tectonically dammed lake. The trenching results, along with radiocarbon dating and published evidence, show the Late Pleistocene-Holocene history of the Aksu fault to comprise prolonged quiescence periods separated by large earthquakes or earthquake clusters at 19,500-20,000, 12,700, 4000-3000, and <850 yr BP (including the 1911 Kemin shock).