History shows that the fault system of the Shan Plateau poses a high seismic hazard. Slip rates and earthquake recurrence intervals of these faults are key to a better quantification of that hazard. However, estimates of reliable slip rates from geodetic and geological observations are very loose, and earthquake recurrence intervals do not yet exist. Although slip rates from geologic and geodetic analysis exist, both have large uncertainties. Moreover, they are inconsistent with each other. We are working on a three-year project to determine long-term slip rates and earthquake recurrence intervals of two key faults to constrain their seismic potential.

In 2015, we constrained short-term geodetic slip rates across the entire fault system at ~12 mm/yr by reanalysing previously published GPS data. We obtained a preliminary upper bound of the very long-term slip rate across one of these faults to be 2-4 mm/yr, from an offset alluvial fan. In 2016 we continued investigating slip rates and paleoseismology there and at a new site farther northeast along this fault.