Investigating an Earthquake Surface Rupture Along the Kumysh Fault (Eastern Tianshan, Central Asia) from High-Resolution Topographic Data

As direct geomorphic evidence and records of earthquakes on the surface, coseismic surface ruptures have long been a key focus in earthquake research. However, compared with strike-slip and normal faults, studies on reverse-fault surface ruptures remain relatively scarce. In this study, surface rupture characteristics of the most recent earthquake on the Kumysh thrust fault in eastern Tianshan were investigated using high-resolution topographic data, including 0.5 m- and 5 cm-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) generated from the WorldView-2 satellite stereo image pairs and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) images, respectively. We carefully mapped the spatial geometry of the surface rupture and measured 120 vertical displacements along the rupture strike. Using the moving-window method and statistical analysis, both moving-mean and moving-maximum coseismic displacement curves were obtained for the entire rupture zone. Results show that the most recent rupture on the Kumysh Fault extends ~25 km with an overall NWW strike, exhibits complex spatial geometry, and can be subdivided into five secondary segments, which are discontinuously distributed in arcuate shapes across both piedmont alluvial fans and mountain fronts. Reverse fault scarps dominate the rupture pattern. The along-strike coseismic displacements generally form three asymmetric triangles, with an average displacement of 0.9–1.1 m and a maximum displacement of 2.8–3.2 m, yielding an estimated earthquake magnitude of Mw 6.6–6.7. This study not only highlights the strong potential of high-resolution remote sensing data for investigating surface earthquake ruptures, but also provides an additional example to the relatively underexplored reverse-fault surface ruptures.