The Longmenshan Fault ( Chinese : 龙门山断层 ) is a thrust fault which runs along the base of the Longmen Mountains in Sichuan province in southwestern China . The strike of the fault plane is approximately NE. Motion on this fault is responsible for the uplift of the mountains relative to the lowlands of the Sichuan Basin to the east. Representing the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau , it is a border formation between the Bayan Kola block in the Plateau and the South China block in the Eurasian plate . The 2008 Wenchuan , 2013 Lushan and 2022 Ya'an earthquakes occurred along this fault.
7-551: A study by the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) states: "The late-Cenozoic deformations in this fault ( that caused the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake ) are concentrated in the Guanxian - Jiangyou fracture (hill-front fracture), Yingxiu - Beichuan fracture (mid-fracture), Wenchuan - Mao County fracture (hill-back fracture), and their related folds. The recent M s 8.0 earthquake occurred on
14-607: A country stricken by two of the world's ten most fatal earthquakes before the creation of CEA, China's first seismic monitoring stations were set up under the Chinese Academy of Sciences . A national Earthquake Affairs Office ( 地震办公室 )was created under joint administration of the National Science and Technology Commission ( 国家科学技术委员会 ) and Chinese Academy of Sciences after the 1966 Xingtai earthquakes . A Central Task Force of Earthquakes ( 中央地震工作小组 ) under
21-526: A low deformation rate. Therefore, Longmenshan formation and its internal fractures constitute a special type that has low earthquake frequences but the potential to cause super strong earthquakes." The American Geophysical Union publication Tectonics describes the 5 km high escarpment thus: "In the Longmen Shan region, however, the topographic margin of the Tibetan Plateau is one of
28-571: Is a public institution managed by the State Council at the deputy ministerial level in charge of national earthquake disaster reduction work. It is currently managed by the Ministry of Emergency Management . Some English text use the name Chinese Seismic Bureau (CSB). In older text, it was also referred to by its former name, National Earthquake Bureau (NEB) or National Seismic Bureau (NSB). CEA presently has nine subordinate bureaus. As
35-824: The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was created the day after a M7.4 earthquake struck Bohai Bay on July 18, 1969. In 1971, the State Council decided to create the National Earthquake Bureau ( CNEB ), predecessor to CEA, to replace the "Central Task Force". The State Council initially delegated administration of the CNEB to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. CNEB became directly administrated by
42-551: The Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture, as a result of Longmenshan thrust pushing southeastward combined with clockwise shears. Since Holocene (10,000), Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture has had evident activities. Its long-term geological slip rate is slower than 1 mm per year. GPS observations confirm the current structural deformation of the Longmenshan formation to be characterized by thrust and right-handed shears, but with
49-505: The world's most remarkable continental escarpments. Elevations rise from circa 600 m in the southern Sichuan Basin to peaks exceeding 6500 m over a horizontal distance of less than 50 km. Regional topographic gradients typically exceed 10% along this mountain front and rival any other margin of the plateau." 30°N 105°E / 30°N 105°E / 30; 105 China Earthquake Administration The China Earthquake Administration ( CEA ; 中国地震局 )
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