关键词: 柯坪塔格, 推覆体, 褶皱-逆断裂带, 变形与扩展

Abstract: The Kalpintag fold nappe is located at the northwestern foot of the Tianshan Mountains. Since Cenozoic, owing to the Indian-Eurasian collision, the Mesozoic fold structures of Tianshan have been rejuvenated, uplifted and pushed northward and westward. As a result, several rows of fold-reverse fault zones have been progressively formed within the foreland basins. This paper describes in detail the Cenozoic deformation features and propagation of the fold-reverse fault zone on the west of the nearly south-north-trending Piqiang fault zone. The results show that the Cenozoic deformation of the nappe was characterized by wavy differential uplift, and this has caused the successive formation of the fold-reverse fault zone from the southern side of the Tianshan Mountains to the Tarim Basin. Among them, the early-formed folds are close to the Tianshan Mountains, while the latter-formed folds are close to the Tarim Basin, indicating the general tendency of northward propagation of the fold-reverse fault zone during their formation process. The distance of propagation may reach up to 76km. Moreover, the front of individual fold-reverse fault zone consists of several fault strands, which are associated with folds and have different ages of formation and time of recent activity. The early-formed faults are close to the Mountain side and the latter-formed close to the basin, indicating the northward propagation of the frontal faults of the individual fold. The distance of propagation is about 100～500m. The mechanism of the propagation of the fold-reverse fault zone is discussed in this paper as well.

Key words: Kalpintag, Nappe, fold-reverse fault zone, deformation and propagation