SHEN Jun-feng¹, YANG Wei-min², LIU Ting¹, HUANG Xiao¹, ZHENG Wei-jie¹, WANG Guo-qiang¹, YU Lei¹

1. School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences(Beijing), Beijing 100083, China;
2. Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China

Abstract: Gouge is an important information carrier for fault activities and the surface texture of gouge quartz contains chronological information of the fault activity. Gouge quartz samples were collected from 22 gouge samples, which were sampled at the Nis gorge section of the Bailong River (BR) fault, western Qinling, and their micro-textures were observed by SEM, besides, 5 of the gouge samples were tested by thermo-luminescence dating. The results showed that BR fault has undergone a few periods of activity, started from the Pliocene, peaked in the early-Pleistocene to early mid-Pleistocene period, was active in the late-Pleistocene but wasn't in the Holocene. This finding is significant for evaluating the activities of BR fault and for assessing their impacts to the regional environment.

Keywords: gouge quartz micro-morphology TL dating Pleistocene Bailong River fault