1 Active tectonics around Almaty and along the Zailisky 2 Alatau rangefront 3 Grützner, C.1, 2*; Walker, R. T.3; Abdrakhmatov, K. E.4; Mukambaev, A.5; Elliott, A. J.3; 4 Elliott, J. R.6 5 1 COMET, Bullard Laboratories, Cambridge University, Madingley Road, Madingley Rise, 6 Cambridge, CB3 0EZ 7 2 Now at: Institute of Geological Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Burgweg 11, 8 07749 Jena, Germany 9 3 COMET, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3AN 10 4 Institute of Seismology, National Academy of Sciences, Kyrgyz Republic 11 5 Data Center of the Institute of Geophysical Researches, L. Chaikinoy Street 4, Almaty 12 050020, Kazakhstan 13 6 COMET, School of Earth & Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK 14 *Corresponding author: Christoph Grützner (
[email protected]) 15 Keywords 16 Tien Shan, Zailisky Alatau, active tectonics, tectonic geomorphology, earthquakes & faulting 17 Highlights 18 - Post-LGM tectonic activity along the Almaty rangefront is expressed in fault scarps in 19 alluvial fans, folding, uplifted abandoned river terraces, and backthrusts 1 20 - Active deformation is laterally distributed, affecting the rangefront, the interior of the 21 mountains, and the foreland 22 - The Holocene slip rate of the rangefront fault is ~1.2-2.2 mm/a in the eastern section 23 Abstract 24 The Zailisky Alatau is a >250-km-long mountain range in Southern Kazakhstan. Its northern 25 rangefront around the major city of Almaty has more than 4 km topographic relief, yet in 26 contrast to other large mountain fronts in the Tien Shan, little is known about its Late 27 Quaternary tectonic activity despite several destructive earthquakes in the historical record.