Flower structures and strike-slip deformation off southwestern Taiwan
Wen-Chun Wang
Abstract
The discussions of the structural stress in the offshore southwest Taiwan can provide some cognition about the regional tectonic configuration. Seismic data reveals the existence of flower structures and mud diapirs offshore from southwestern Taiwan. The right-lateral strike-slip fault model can show the deformation of homogeneous rock under confining pressure in right-later strike-slip fault system. Comparing with the right-lateral strike-slip fault model, the trend of the flower structures seemingly conform to the orientation of secondary synthetic shears in areas I & III and antithetic X shears in areas II & IV. The structures off the coast in areas I & III are similar to transpressional flower structures, and in areas II & IV are similar to transtensional ones. Mud diapirs emerge through thick sedimentary layers forming NNE-SSW trending anticlines. The diapiric anticlines are formed in the arrangement of en echelon folds and relatively correspond to the orientation of the anticline in the right-lateral strike-slip fault model. It seems that the trends of the fault in the flower structures and mud diapirs can be interpreted by the right-lateral strike-slip fault model. Development of the structural patterns seems to be controlled by three factors, which are mechanisms of the flower structures, the sequence of formation, and the pre-existing structures.
Reference
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Lai,T. D., 1996. Neotectonic displayed by seismic data offshore in southwestern Taiwan. Master of Science thesis, National Taiwan Ocean University, Institute of Applied Geophysics.
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