Active faults and seismic hazard in MyanmarThe second-largest
country in Southeast Asia, Myanmar, is home to over 60 million
people. Thiscountry lies in the complex boundary zone on the
eastern edge of the Indian plate. Due to itspolitical isolation,
the country has been largely inaccessible to the western world for
half acentury (military rule from 1962-2011). Given that plate
tectonics, the foundation on whichmodern earthquake science relies,
only gained acceptance in the 1960s, little is known aboutthe
geology of this region or its related hazards.SearchHome Judith
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12/08/2015 07:29Map of Myanmar and surrounding regions. Mapped
thrust faults (targets for seismicacquisition) shown in red; shaded
red regions show compressive zones with inferred additionalthrust
faulting. Sagaing fault is shown for reference. Yellow circles show
cities with populations> 500,000. Blue squares show oil and gas
elds. Basemap from Wang and Sieh et al. (in prep).A general
election in 2010 led to a more democratic government being
installed in Myanmar in2011. This change in leadership has led to
an opening of some doors to science, and is alreadyaccelerating
opportunities for research and hazard mitigation in this region.
The rst stepstowards outlining seismic hazards have been taken by
scientists at the Earth Observatory ofSingapore (e.g., Wang and
Sieh et al., 2011, Wang and Sieh et al., in prep), in collaboration
withscientists within Myanmar; they have begun to map the active
structures in this region. Inparticular, they have measured a slip
rate on the north-south-trending strike-slip Sagaing faultof 11-18
mm/yr. Although extremely fast, this slip accounts for only ~50% of
the dierentialmovement between the Burma plate to the west and the
Sunda plate to the east, implying thata number of other, active
structures must exist in this region. They have begun to map
theseother structures based on satellite imagery, using geomorphic
indicators of active deformation(Figure 6). Such structures include
a large band of contractional deformation termed theIntraplate
Deformation zone. Combining this initial mapping of the Intraplate
Deformation zone in a 3D environment withseismicity records (which
are available for the last several decades) will allow me and my
teamto develop an initial 3D fault model to support continued
research in this region. In addition,this area contains important
reserves of oil and gas that extend along the trend of
theIntraplate Deformation zone, so industry data should be
available as well. The current political change in Myanmar provides
a tremendous opportunity to advancescientic research and mitigate
hazard. This political change also makes these eorts toconstrain
seismic hazard even more critical, as a large, damaging earthquake
in Myanmarcould potentially derail this burgeoning democracy.
Maintaining this nascent democratic anddevelopmental impetus is
important for improving the political and economic stability of
thisregion, as well as improving the lives of the 60 million people
who live in Myanmar.Gallery:EOS Team: Principal Investigator:
Judith HubbardImagery 2015 NASA Terms of Use Imagery 2015
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