ABSTRACT
The contemporary tectonic movement in China is governed by both Tethys-Himalayan and Western Pacific ongoing geodynamic processes. In the west, the tectonic driving force is primarily from the collision between the Eurasia Plate and India Plate. This process also affects much of the East China. Whereas, the southeastern coastal region and the northeastern part of China are mainly affected by the motion of the Philippine Sea Plate and the Pacific Plate, respectively. Under the present-day geodynamic regime, the Chinese Continent is divided into 6 intraplate tectonic blocks: Qinghai-Tibet Block, Gansu-Xinjiang Block, Northeast China Block, North China Block, South China Block and Southeast China Block. Relative movements have been found along boundaries between the intraplate blocks. The tectonic movement between intraplate blocks is usually distributed over a wide area. The mechanism and style of these movements are considerably different from those along interplate boundaries. The crustal deformation inside these intraplate blocks are mainly four types: thrusting and crustal shortening; conjugate strike-slip faulting; localized pull-apart extension and block rotation. The prehistoric earthquake study shows that the recurrence interval of major earthquakes along major active faults in Chinese Continent is commonly much longer than one thousand years. Thus, the strain rate inferred from the earthquake data in Chinese Continent is much lower than that in the interplate regions.
