TY - JOUR A1 - Patyniak, Magda A1 - Landgraf, Angela A1 - Dzhumabaeva, Atyrgul A1 - Abdrakhmatov, Kanatbek E. A1 - Rosenwinkel, Swenja A1 - Korup, Oliver A1 - Preusser, Frank A1 - Fohlmeister, Jens Bernd A1 - Arrowsmith, J. Ramon A1 - Strecker, Manfred T1 - Paleoseismic Record of Three Holocene Earthquakes Rupturing the Issyk-Ata Fault near Bishkek, North Kyrgyzstan JF - Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America N2 - The northern edge of the western central Tien Shan range is bounded by the Issyk-Ata fault situated south of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Contraction in this thick-skinned orogen occurs with low-strain accumulation and long earthquake recurrence intervals. In the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, a sequence of large earthquakes with magnitudes between 6.9 and 8 affected the northern Tien Shan but left nearly the entire extent of the Issyk-Ata fault unruptured. Here, the only known historic earthquake ruptured in A.D. 1885 (M6.9) along the western end of the Issyk-Ata fault. Because earthquakes in low-strain regions often tend to cluster in time and may promote failure along nearby structures, the earthquake history of the northern Tien Shan represents an exceptional structural setting for studying fault behavior affected by an intraplate earthquake sequence. We present a paleoseismological study from one site (Belek) along the Issyk-Ata fault located east of the A.D. 1885 epicentral area. Our analysis combines a range of tools, including photogrammetry, differential Global Positioning System, 3D visualization, and age modeling with different dating methods (infrared stimulated luminescence, radiocarbon, U-series) to improve the reliability of an event chronology for the trench stratigraphy and fault geometry. We were able to distinguish three different surfacerupturing paleoearthquakes; these affected the area before 10.5 +/- 1.1 cal ka B.P., at similar to 5.6 +/- 1.0 cal ka B.P., and at similar to 630 +/- 100 cal B.P., respectively. Associated paleomagnitudes for the last two earthquakes range between M6.7 and 7.4, with a cumulative slip rate of 0.7 +/- 0.32 mm/yr. We did not find evidence for the A.D. 1885 event at Belek. Our study yielded two main overall results: first, it extends the regional historic and paleoseismic record; second, the documented rupture events along the Issyk-Ata fault suggest that this fault was not affected in its entirety; instead, these events indicate segmented rupture behavior. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1785/0120170083 SN - 0037-1106 SN - 1943-3573 VL - 107 SP - 2721 EP - 2737 PB - Seismological Society of America CY - Albany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Abdrakhmatov, Kanatbek E. A1 - Walker, R. T. A1 - Campbell, G. E. A1 - Carr, A. S. A1 - Elliott, A. A1 - Hillemann, Christian A1 - Hollingsworth, J. A1 - Landgraf, Angela A1 - Mackenzie, D. A1 - Mukambayev, A. A1 - Rizza, M. A1 - Sloan, R. A. T1 - Multisegment rupture in the 11 July 1889 Chilik earthquake (M-w 8.0-8.3), Kazakh Tien Shan, interpreted from remote sensing, field survey, and paleoseismic trenching JF - Journal of geophysical research : Solid earth N2 - The 11 July 1889 Chilik earthquake (M-w 8.0-8.3) forms part of a remarkable sequence of large earthquakes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the northern Tien Shan. Despite its importance, the source of the 1889 earthquake remains unknown, though the macroseismic epicenter is sited in the Chilik valley, similar to 100 km southeast of Almaty, Kazakhstan (similar to 2 million population). Several short fault segments that have been inferred to have ruptured in 1889 are too short on their own to account for the estimated magnitude. In this paper we perform detailed surveying and trenching of the similar to 30 km long Saty fault, one of the previously inferred sources, and find that it was formed in a single earthquake within the last 700 years, involving surface slip of up to 10 m. The scarp-forming event, likely to be the 1889 earthquake, was the only surface-rupturing event for at least 5000 years and potentially for much longer. From satellite imagery we extend the mapped length of fresh scarps within the 1889 epicentral zone to a total of similar to 175 km, which we also suggest as candidate ruptures from the 1889 earthquake. The 175 km of rupture involves conjugate oblique left-lateral and right-lateral slip on three separate faults, with step overs of several kilometers between them. All three faults were essentially invisible in the Holocene geomorphology prior to the last slip. The recurrence interval between large earthquakes on any of these faults, and presumably on other faults of the Tien Shan, may be longer than the timescale over which the landscape is reset, providing a challenge for delineating sources of future hazard. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JB012763 SN - 2169-9313 SN - 2169-9356 VL - 121 SP - 4615 EP - 4640 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Landgraf, Angela A1 - Dzhumabaeva, A. A1 - Abdrakhmatov, Kanatbek E. A1 - Strecker, Manfred A1 - Macaulay, E. A. A1 - Arrowsmith, J. Ramón A1 - Sudhaus, Henriette A1 - Preusser, F. A1 - Rugel, Georg A1 - Merchel, Silke T1 - Repeated large-magnitude earthquakes in a tectonically active, low-strain continental interior: The northern Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan JF - Journal of geophysical research : Solid earth N2 - The northern Tien Shan of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan has been affected by a series of major earthquakes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To assess the significance of such a pulse of strain release in a continental interior, it is important to analyze and quantify strain release over multiple time scales. We have undertaken paleoseismological investigations at two geomorphically distinct sites (Panfilovkoe and Rot Front) near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Although located near the historic epicenters, both sites were not affected by these earthquakes. Trenching was accompanied by dating stratigraphy and offset surfaces using luminescence, radiocarbon, and Be-10 terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide methods. At Rot Front, trenching of a small scarp did not reveal evidence for surface rupture during the last 5000 years. The scarp rather resembles an extensive debris-flow lobe. At Panfilovkoe, we estimate a Late Pleistocene minimum slip rate of 0.2 +/- 0.1 mm/a, averaged over at least two, probably three earthquake cycles. Dip-slip reverse motion along segmented, moderately steep faults resulted in hanging wall collapse scarps during different events. The most recent earthquake occurred around 3.6 +/- 1.3 kyr ago (1 sigma), with dip-slip offsets between 1.2 and 1.4 m. We calculate a probabilistic paleomagnitude to be between 6.7 and 7.2, which is in agreement with regional data from the Kyrgyz range. The morphotectonic signals in the northern Tien Shan are a prime example of deformation in a tectonically active intracontinental mountain belt and as such can help understand the longer-term coevolution of topography and seismogenic processes in similar structural settings worldwide. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JB012714 SN - 2169-9313 SN - 2169-9356 VL - 121 SP - 3888 EP - 3910 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER -