Geometry and Quaternary kinematics of fold-and-thrust units of southwestern Taiwan

Structural and paleostress analyses provide new insights into the Quaternar y kinematics of the outermost fold-and-thrust units of southwestern Taiwan Foothills. The frontal folds are interpreted as fault-related folds, and th eir tectonic evolution through space and time is tightly constrained. Fold development is correlated with reef building on top of the anticlines. More over, we provide field evidence that NW-SE fault zones oblique to the struc tural grain of the belt probably acted as transfer fault zones during the t he Quaternary fold-thrust emplacement. Two successive Quaternary stress reg imes are evidenced in southwestern Taiwan: A NW-SE compression, followed by a recent nearly E-W compression. The latter shows an along-strike change f rom pure: E-W contraction to the north to perpendicular N-S extension in th e south. This southward decrease in N-S confinement probably represents the on-land signature of the incipient Quaternary tectonic escape predicted by analogue and numerical modelling and evidenced at present-day by Global Po sitioning System data.