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Journal of the Geological Society; 1999; v. 156; issue.3; p. 457-464;
DOI: 10.1144/gsjgs.156.3.0457
© 1999 Geological Society of London

Article

Timing of formation of forebergs in the northeastern Gobi Altai, Mongolia: implications for estimating mountain uplift rates and earthquake recurrence intervals

LEWIS A. OWEN1, DICKSON CUNNINGHAM2, BENEDICT W. M. RICHARDS3, EDWARD RHODES4, BRIAN F. WINDLEY2, DORJ DORJNAMJAA5 & JALBUUGIN BADAMGARAV5

1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0423, USA(e-mail: Lewis.Owen{at}ucr.edu)
2 Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
3 Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK
4 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, Oxford University, 6 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QJ, UK
5 Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology, Ulaan Bator, Mongolia

Bedrock and Quaternary alluvial fans in the forelands of the northern Gobi Altai have been faulted and warped by foreland-propagating thrust faults to form elongate hills known as forebergs. Forebergs near Bogd town, north of Arsta Bogd, and at Ih Hetsüü, north of Baga Bogd were mapped and their formation constrained using luminescence dating of lacustrine and fanglomerates sediments to give localized uplift rates of c. 0.05 m ka–1, and between c. 1.6 and 4.1 m ka–1, respectively. Comparisons between vertical surface rupture during the 1957 Gobi Altai earthquake with the age and amount of uplift of lacustrine sediments provide a tentative estimate of between 1288 ± 382 to 497 ± 120 years for the average recurrence interval of great earthquakes in the Baga Bogd region. These localized uplifts rates support the view that the Gobi Altai Mountains probably took between 50 and 25 million years to form and were, therefore, coeval with the uplift of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

Key Words: Gobi Altai • Mongolia • earthquakes • luminescence dating • uplift rates




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R. A. J. Robinson, J. Q. G. Spencer, M. R. Strecker, A. Richter, and R. N. Alonso
Luminescence dating of alluvial fans in intramontane basins of NW Argentina
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[Abstract] [PDF]