The Chaman Fault is a major, active geological fault in Pakistan and Afghanistan that runs for over 850km. Tectonically, it is actually a system of related geologic faults that separates the Eurasian Plate from the Indo-Australian Plate. It is a terrestrial, primarily transform, left-lateral strike-slip fault. The slippage rate along the Chaman fault system as the Indo-Australian Plate moves northward (relative to the Eurasian Plate) has been estimated at 10mm/yr or more. In addition to its primary transform aspect, the Chaman fault system has a compressional component as the Indian Plate is colliding with the Eurasian Plate. This type of plate boundary is sometimes called a transpressional boundary.
Shyok Suture Zone
The Shyok Suture Zone is a cretaceous-tertiary suture located in Gilgit-Baltistan which separates the Karakoram from the cretaceous Kohistan–Ladakh oceanic arc. In previously published interpretations, the Shyok Suture Zone marks either the site of subduction of a wide Tethys Ocean, or represents an early cretaceous intra-continental marginal basin along the southern margin of Asia. A sedimentological, structural and igneous geochemical study was made of a well-exposed traverse in Skardu. To the south of the Shyok Suture Zone in this area is the Ladakh Arc and its Late Cretaceous, mainly volcanogenic, sedimentary cover (Burje-La Formation). The Shyok Suture Zone extends northwards (ca. 30km) to the late tertiary Main Karakoram Thrust that transported Asian, mainly high-grade metamorphic rocks southwards over the suture zone.
↑Robertson, Alastair H.F; Collins, Alan S (2002). "Shyok Suture Zone, N Pakistan: Late Mesozoic–Tertiary evolution of a critical suture separating the oceanic Ladakh Arc from the Asian continental margin". Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. 20 (3): 309–51. Bibcode:2002JAESc..20..309R. doi:10.1016/S1367-9120(01)00041-4.
↑Gavillot, Y; Meigs, A; Yule, D; Heermance, R; Rittenour, T; Madugo, C; Malik, M (2016). "Shortening rate and Holocene surface rupture on the Riasi fault system in the Kashmir Himalaya: Active thrusting within the Northwest Himalayan orogenic wedge". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 128 (7–8): 1070. Bibcode:2016GSAB..128.1070G. doi:10.1130/B31281.1.
Borneman, N; Hodges, K. V; Wartho, J (2013). "The Shyok Suture Zone and Main Karakoram Thrust System in the Saltoro Range of Ladakh, Northwestern India". American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting. 11. Bibcode:2013AGUFM.T11A2418B.
Ghazi, Shahid; Ali, Syed Haroon; Sahraeyan, Mohammad; Hanif, Tanzila (2014). "An overview of tectonosedimentary framework of the Salt Range, northwestern Himalayan fold and thrust belt, Pakistan". Arabian Journal of Geosciences. 8 (3): 1635–51. doi:10.1007/s12517-014-1284-3. S2CID129093451.
Monalisa; Khwaja, Azam A; Jan, M. Qasim (2007). "Seismic Hazard Assessment of the NW Himalayan Fold-and-Thrust Belt, Pakistan, Using Probabilistic Approach". Journal of Earthquake Engineering. 11 (2): 257–301. doi:10.1080/13632460601031243. S2CID140142175.
