The quantification of tectonic deformation in the Eastern and Central Asia is of great significance for the study on global plate motion and lithospheric dynamics. In the past four years, the velocity field of horizontal crustal movement for the Chinese mainland has been established for the first time thanks to the intensified GPS measurements and its improved accuracy. The velocity field derived from GPS measurements delineates the patterns of tectonic deformation in the Chinese mainland in the unprecedented detail, and thus reveals the new features of the ongoing tectonic process resulted from the collision of Indian plate to Eurasian plate. Meanwhile, the surface offset induced by two strong earthquakes occurred in Chinese mainland was sampled precisely using InSAR technique.
Assuming that the contemporary tectonic activity in China can be treated as continuous, we have simulated 1245 present-day multiple-epoch GPS velocity solutions in the range of Chinese mainland, Mongolia, Myanma, India, Nepal and Himalayas with a bi-cubic spline interpolation function to inverse the integral horizontal velocity with the fitting accuracy less than 3 mm and obtained the strain rate fields in Chinese mainland. We have also analyzed the characteristics of spatial distribution of horizontal deformation and strain rate fields in Chinese mainland. The result shows that the analysis on the continuous deformation in the large-scale and dense GPS velocity fields can reveal not only the integral tectonic characters of Chinese mainland but also the tectonic characters in local regions. Generally, the magnitude and intensity of horizontal tectonic deformation have a mutation in the South-North Seismic Belt (95°E-102°E), which is stronger in the west than the east and stronger in the south than the north. Large strain rates are found in the areas as Kunlun block, Xianshuihe fault zone and central Yunnan, and the variation of velocity is very rapid. At the same time, the tectonic activity is relatively calm on Altyn Tagh fault zone, and extensive strain is found in the eastern part of central Tianshan.
