Late-Pleistocene seismites from Lake Issyk-kul , the Tien Shan range, Kyrgyzstan
by
Dan Bowman
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 84105 Israel
Coauthors: Andrey Korjenkov (Institute of Geosciences, Potsdam University, Postfach 60 15 53, D-14415 Potsdam, Germany), Naomi Porat (Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Yisrael Street, Jerusalem 95501, Israel)

The Tien Shan range in Central Asia is one of the most seismically-active regions of the world and well known for its major earthquakes. The aim of the study was to reveal, describe and date soft sediment deformation structures along the shorelines of the Issyk-kul lake in the northern Tien Shan. Sedimentary characteristics of the deformation-bearing beds indicate cyclic facies fluctuations within the shallow lacustrine - beach - fluviatile environments. We applied all field criteria suggested in former studies for relating deformations to palaeoseismic triggering events. The assembled field data provides compelling evidence for a seismic origin of the deformation structures. Luminescence dating of the sediments give a time window of 26 ± 2.1 ka - 10.5 ± 0.7 ka YBP.

Date received: July 23, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caji-46.