Browsing by Author "Morell, KD"

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    Geomorphology reveals active decollement geometry in the central Himalayan seismic gap
    (Geological Society America, Inc., 2015-06-01) Morell, KD; Sandiford, M; Rajendran, CP; Alimanovic, A; Fink, D; Sanwal, J
    The similar to 700-km-long "central seismic gap" is the most prominent segment of the Himalayan front not to have ruptured in a major earthquake during the last 200-500 yr. This prolonged seismic quiescence has led to the proposition that this region, with a population >10 million, is overdue for a great earthquake. Despite the region's recognized seismic risk, the geometry of faults likely to host large earthquakes remains poorly understood. Here, we place new constraints on the spatial distribution of rock uplift within the western similar to 400 km of the central seismic gap using topographic and river profile analyses together with basinwide erosion rate estimates from cosmogenic Be-10. The data sets show a distinctive physiographic transition at the base of the high Himalaya in the state of Uttarakhand, India, characterized by abrupt strike-normal increases in channel steepness and a tenfold increase in erosion rates. When combined with previously published geophysical imaging and seismicity data sets, we interpret the observed spatial distribution of erosion rates and channel steepness to reflect the landscape response to spatially variable rock uplift due to a structurally coherent ramp-flat system of the Main Himalayan Thrust. Although it remains unresolved whether the kinematics of the Main Himalayan Thrust ramp involve an emergent fault or duplex, the landscape and erosion rate patterns suggest that the decollement beneath the state of Uttarakhand provides a sufficiently large and coherent fault segment capable of hosting a great earthquake.© 2015, Geological Society America, Inc.
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    New constraints on the geometry and kinematics of active faults in the Hinterland of the Northwest Himalaya
    (American Geophysical Union, 2014-12-15) Morell, KD; Sandiford, M; Rajendran, CP; Fink, D; Kohn, BP
    The geometry and kinematics of the active, and potentially seismogenic, fault structures within the hinterland of the Himalaya have proven challenging to constrain in the past, primarily because active faults in this region tend to be buried beneath the subsurface and active seismicity often does not align with surficially mapped fault traces. Here we present a series of complementary datasets, including results from low temperature thermochronology, basin-wide erosion rates from 10Be concentrations, and topographic and longitudinal profile analyses, that place constraints on the spatial distribution of fault-related rock uplift and erosion across a ~400-km long region of the lower and high Himalaya of northwest India. Results from our analyses reveal that hillslope morphology and channel steepness are relatively invariant parallel to strike but vary significantly across strike, with the most prominent and abrupt variations occurring at the physiographic transition between the lower and high Himalaya (PT2), near the axial trace of the ramp-flat transition in the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). The cross-strike changes in geomorphology observed across the PT2 correlate with an order of magnitude northward increase in basin-wide erosion rates (~0.06-0.8 mm/a) and a corresponding decrease in apatite (~5-2 Ma) and zircon (U-Th)/He (~10-2 Ma) cooling ages. Combined with published geophysical and seismicity data, we interpret these results to reflect spatial variations in rock uplift and exhumation induced by a segment of the MHT ramp-flat system that is at least ~400 km long and ~125 km wide. The relatively young (U-Th)/He ages (<10 Ma) greater than 20 km south of the MHT ramp-flat transition preliminarily suggest that the kinematics of this system are best explained by a model which incorporates an accreting duplex on the MHT ramp but additional forthcoming analyses, including thermal modeling, will confirm if this hypothesis is robust.