TECTONICS, VOL. ???, XXXX, DOI:10.1002/, 1 The tectonics of the western Ordos Plateau, Ningxia, 2 China: slip rates on the Luoshan and East Helanshan 3 Faults Timothy A. Middleton,1 Richard T. Walker,1 Dylan H. Rood,2 Edward J. Rhodes,3 Barry Parsons,1 Qiyun Lei,4 John R. Elliott,1 Zhikun Ren,5 and Yu Zhou1 Key Points. Right-lateral slip rate on the Luoshan Fault ◦ is 4.3 0.4 mm/a. ± Throw rate on the East Helanshan Fault is ◦ < 0.6 0.1 mm/a. ± Predominant motion in western Ordos is ◦ right-lateral strike-slip, supporting anti- clockwise rotation of the whole plateau. Corresponding author: Timothy A. Middleton, COMET, Department of Earth Sciences, Uni- versity of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3AN, UK. (
[email protected]) 1COMET, Department of Earth Sciences, DRAFT September23,2016,12:43pm DRAFT X-2 MIDDLETON ET AL.: TECTONICS, WESTERN ORDOS PLATEAU 4 Abstract. 5 Analysis of the locus, style and rates of fault- 6 ing is fundamental to understanding the kine- 7 matics of continental deformation. The Or- 8 dos Plateau lies to the northeast of Tibet, within 9 the India-Eurasia collision zone. Previous stud- University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3AN, UK 2Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK & AMS Laboratory, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, UK 3Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK 4Ningxia Seismological Bureau, Yinchuan, China 5State Key Laboratory for Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China DRAFT September23,2016,12:43pm DRAFT MIDDLETON ET AL.: TECTONICS, WESTERN ORDOS PLATEAU X-3 10 ies have suggested that it behaves rigidly and 11 rotates anticlockwise within a large-scale zone 12 of ENE-WSW left-lateral shearing.