Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault starts from Yuhekou in the west and extends eastward into Anhui Province through Xinxiang, Yanjin, Fengqiu, Lankao, Minquan, Shangqiu and Xiayi, with a total length of about 400km and a general strike of NWW. It is a regional concealed fault in Henan Province and a boundary fault between northern North China depression and southern North China depression.
This study focuses on the Fengqiu section of Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault, which is the boundary structure between the Kaifeng sag, Neihuang uplift and Dongpu sag. Controlled by the NE-NEE trending Changyuan Fault and Yellow River Fault at its east and west end, this fault section has a length of about 30km and controls the Mesozoic to early Cenozoic sedimentation in the Kaifeng sag and the south side of Dongpu sag.
In this paper, the shallow structural characteristics and Quaternary activities of Fengqiu section of the Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault are revealed by the combination of reflection seismic exploration and drilling detection. Two shallow seismic exploration profiles and one composite drilling geological section are arranged across the fault.
The results of shallow seismic exploration show that the Fengqiu section of Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault is NWW trending. It is a north-dipping normal fault accompanied by several nearly parallel normal faults, and the fault is still active since the Quaternary.
In the composite drilling geological section at Yaowu, the latest faulted stratum is a clay layer between borehole YW5 and YW7, and the buried depth of the upper breakpoint is between 57.00~61.50m. Combined with the dating results of the collected samples, it is comprehensively judged that the latest activity age of Fengqiu section is the middle of late Pleistocene. Since the middle of late Pleistocene, the whole region is in a relatively stable tectonic period. It is verified that the comprehensive detection method of shallow seismic exploration with drilling can effectively find out the accurate location of hidden faults.
The zone with strong vertical differential movement is often the zone where earthquakes occur. The vertical differential movement between Kaifeng sag and Neihuang uplift is very strong, and the difference reaches nearly 1 000 meters since Neogene. Moreover, the structural pattern of the main strong earthquakes in the North China Plain is characterized by zoning in NE direction and segmentation in NW direction, especially at the intersections of NWW-trending faults and NE-trending faults. The Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault intersects with a series of NE-NEE trending faults, including Tangdong, Changyuan, Yellow River and Liaolan faults from west to east. The Fengqiu section is at the intersection with the Changyuan Fault and the Yellow River Fault, and is located in the Fengqiu M6.5 potential seismic source area of the North China plain seismic belt. The intersection of two groups of Quaternary active faults is a favorable place for the preparation and generation of moderate and strong earthquakes. Therefore, the research results provide seismological basis for the site selection of major engineering projects, urban planning and construction in this area, and have reference value for discussing the geodynamic issues such as deep and shallow structural relationship and structural evolution of Xinxiang-Shangqiu Fault.
Pangusi-Xinxiang Fault is a great-scale, deep-incising buried active fault in the southern margin of the Taihang Mountains. In order to find out the location, characteristics, structure and activities of Pangusi-Xinxiang Fault, shallow reflection profiles with six lines crossing the buried faults were carried out. In this paper, based on the high-resolution seismic data acquisition technology and high-precision processing technology, we obtained clear images of underground structures. The results show that Pangusi-Xinxiang Fault is a near EW-trending Quaternary active fault and its structural features are different in different segment. The middle part of the fault behaves as a south-dipping normal fault and controls the north boundary of Jiyuan sag; The eastern part of the fault is a north-dipping normal fault and a dividing line of Wuzhi uplift and Xiuwu sag. The shallow seismic profiles reveal that the up-breakpoint of the Pangusi-Xinxiang Fault is at depth of 60~70m, which offsets the lower strata of upper Pleistocene. We infer that the activity time of this fault is in the lower strata of late Pleistocene. In this study, not only the location and characteristics of Pangusi-Xinxiang Fault are determined, but also the reliable geological and seismological evidences for the fault activity estimation are provided.
To test the effect of three-dimensional seismic reflection methods used in active fault survey, we have done a three-dimensional shallow seismic reflection exploration experiment around the Luhuatai Fault in the west of Yinchuan Basin. The experiment uses swath geometry of 8 lines and 10 shots. Every two adjacent swaths overlap 3 survey lines, thus 5 swaths and 28 survey lines are laid in total. The ground sampling grid is 5m×20m and the CMP grid is 2.5m×5m. The data volume that reflects the three-dimensional spatial structure of the Luhuatai Fault is obtained.In data processing, we select the suitable three-dimensional seismic data process modules. The main processes are composed of raw data input, three-dimensional geometry defining and checking, anomalous trace edit and first arrival mute, spherical divergence compensation, surgical filtering to eliminate surface waves, surface-consistent amplitude compensation, surface-consistent deconvolution, velocity analysis and residual static correction(twice iteration), DMO and the third time velocity analysis, final stacking, three-dimensional post-stack de-noising and horizontally interpolating, one-pass 3-D migration. 3-D seismic data interpretation uses the way of human-computer interaction. Through a variety of methods such as multi-line profiles contrasting, time slicing, three-dimensional visualization, and 3-D coherence cube technology, the reflection horizons are discerned and tracked, and the three-dimensional data volume reflecting the spatial variation of strata and faults is obtained. The results after fine processing and synthetical interpretation show that the Luhuatai Fault consists of two normal faults that incline to each other. The major fault inclines to SE, and the minor fault inclines to NW. The distance between them gradually increases from north to south. In addition, the minor fault merges into the major fault at the depth of approximately 780~800m. The up-breakpoint of the major fault has a tendency of deepening from north to south. The up-breakpoint depth is about 25~30m in the northern part of experimental area, and about 35~40m in the southern part of experimental area. The experimental results show that the three-dimensional seismic data has the advantages of large volume of data, information-rich, high accuracy of migration, and high precision of tomography. It can reflect the three-dimensional spatial distribution of strata and faults in different aspects, and it is beneficial for the imaging of complex structures and faults.