Clearer Picture of the Spatiotemporal Growth of a Pull-Apart Basin

Book excerpt: This book deals with the evolution of active plate margins, with a focus on the Pacific NW. A multidisciplinary study aiming at the elucidation of complicated tectonic processes is based on structural geology, sedimentology, numerical modeling, and the latest methodology of geophysics. A high-resolution 3D seismic data acquisition system was developed for visualization of the shallow subsurface and has revealed recent architectures and sedimentary facies in a pull-apart basin along an arc-bisecting fault of southwest Japan. Based on this geophysical achievement, paleoenvironments during the latest Pleistocene are vividly restored by means of seismic attribute analyses. The scientific results presented here pave the way for further investigations on mobile belt frontiers where harsh conditions hinder efforts to decipher the Earth’s dynamics.