Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading
We studied the southern part of the NW-SE trending Sudetic Marginal fault (SMF), situated at the northeastern limit of the Bohemian Massif in central Europe, to assess its Quaternary activity. Eighteen trenches and thirty-four electric resistivity profiles were performed at Bílá Voda to study the fa...
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ftimperialcol:oai:spiral.imperial.ac.uk:10044/1/98215 2023-05-15T16:40:29+02:00 Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading Štěpančíková, P Rockwell, TK Stemberk, J Rhodes, EJ Hartvich, F Luttrell, K Myers, M Tábořík, P Rood, DH Wechsler, N Nývlt, D Ortuño, M Hók, J 2022-05-08 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98215 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 en eng Elsevier BV Earth and Planetary Science Letters 0012-821X http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98215 doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 2023-05-23 CC-BY-NC-ND 12 1 Geochemistry & Geophysics 02 Physical Sciences 04 Earth Sciences Journal Article 2022 ftimperialcol https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 2022-07-14T22:41:17Z We studied the southern part of the NW-SE trending Sudetic Marginal fault (SMF), situated at the northeastern limit of the Bohemian Massif in central Europe, to assess its Quaternary activity. Eighteen trenches and thirty-four electric resistivity profiles were performed at Bílá Voda to study the fault zone and 3-dimensional distribution of a beheaded alluvial fan on the NE side of the fault. We interpret a small drainage, located about 29–45 m to the SE of the fan apex, as the only plausible source channel implying a similar amount of left-lateral offset. The alluvial fan deposits’ radiometric ages range between about 24 and 63 ka, but postglacial deposits younger than 11 ka are not displaced, indicating that all motion occurred in the late Pleistocene. The site lies ∼150 km south of the late Pleistocene Weichselian maximum (∼20 ka) ice sheet front. We model the effects of the ice load on lithospheric flexure and resolved fault stresses, and show that slip on the SMF was promoted by the presence of the ice sheet, resulting in a late Pleistocene slip rate of ∼1.1+2.3/−0.6 mm/yr. As the most favorable time for glacial loading-induced slip would be during the glacial maximum between about 24 and 12 ka, it is doubtful that the slip rate remained constant during the entire period of activity, and if most slip occurred during this period, the short-term rate may have been even higher. Considering that the modern maximum principal stress (σ1) is oriented nearly parallel to the Sudetic Marginal fault (NNW-SSE) and is thus unfavorable for fault motion, our observations suggest that the likelihood of continued motion and earthquake production is much lower in the absence of an ice sheet. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice Sheet Imperial College London: Spiral Earth and Planetary Science Letters 591 117596 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Imperial College London: Spiral |
op_collection_id |
ftimperialcol |
language |
English |
topic |
Geochemistry & Geophysics 02 Physical Sciences 04 Earth Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Geochemistry & Geophysics 02 Physical Sciences 04 Earth Sciences Štěpančíková, P Rockwell, TK Stemberk, J Rhodes, EJ Hartvich, F Luttrell, K Myers, M Tábořík, P Rood, DH Wechsler, N Nývlt, D Ortuño, M Hók, J Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
topic_facet |
Geochemistry & Geophysics 02 Physical Sciences 04 Earth Sciences |
description |
We studied the southern part of the NW-SE trending Sudetic Marginal fault (SMF), situated at the northeastern limit of the Bohemian Massif in central Europe, to assess its Quaternary activity. Eighteen trenches and thirty-four electric resistivity profiles were performed at Bílá Voda to study the fault zone and 3-dimensional distribution of a beheaded alluvial fan on the NE side of the fault. We interpret a small drainage, located about 29–45 m to the SE of the fan apex, as the only plausible source channel implying a similar amount of left-lateral offset. The alluvial fan deposits’ radiometric ages range between about 24 and 63 ka, but postglacial deposits younger than 11 ka are not displaced, indicating that all motion occurred in the late Pleistocene. The site lies ∼150 km south of the late Pleistocene Weichselian maximum (∼20 ka) ice sheet front. We model the effects of the ice load on lithospheric flexure and resolved fault stresses, and show that slip on the SMF was promoted by the presence of the ice sheet, resulting in a late Pleistocene slip rate of ∼1.1+2.3/−0.6 mm/yr. As the most favorable time for glacial loading-induced slip would be during the glacial maximum between about 24 and 12 ka, it is doubtful that the slip rate remained constant during the entire period of activity, and if most slip occurred during this period, the short-term rate may have been even higher. Considering that the modern maximum principal stress (σ1) is oriented nearly parallel to the Sudetic Marginal fault (NNW-SSE) and is thus unfavorable for fault motion, our observations suggest that the likelihood of continued motion and earthquake production is much lower in the absence of an ice sheet. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Štěpančíková, P Rockwell, TK Stemberk, J Rhodes, EJ Hartvich, F Luttrell, K Myers, M Tábořík, P Rood, DH Wechsler, N Nývlt, D Ortuño, M Hók, J |
author_facet |
Štěpančíková, P Rockwell, TK Stemberk, J Rhodes, EJ Hartvich, F Luttrell, K Myers, M Tábořík, P Rood, DH Wechsler, N Nývlt, D Ortuño, M Hók, J |
author_sort |
Štěpančíková, P |
title |
Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
title_short |
Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
title_full |
Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
title_fullStr |
Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
title_full_unstemmed |
Acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central European fault driven by ice loading |
title_sort |
acceleration of late pleistocene activity of a central european fault driven by ice loading |
publisher |
Elsevier BV |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98215 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 |
genre |
Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Ice Sheet |
op_source |
12 1 |
op_relation |
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 0012-821X http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/98215 doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 |
op_rights |
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 2023-05-23 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117596 |
container_title |
Earth and Planetary Science Letters |
container_volume |
591 |
container_start_page |
117596 |
_version_ |
1766030883933913088 |