Tectonic activity of the Puli Basin in Central Taiwan: Observation from space and fields

The Puli Basin is the largest basin in the Taiwan active orogeny. In terms of geology, the Puli Basin spreads over the Western Foothills (WF) and the Hsuehshan Range (HR), and the lithofacies are quite different between the north part and the south part of WF. Thus, Puli is formed at a kinematic transition zone, which makes the tectonic evolution of Puli Basin complicated. Many different tectonic models have been proposed by previous studies to interpret the formation of the Puli Basin. In this study, we aim to measure the deformation for analyzing the tectonics and to understand the mechanism of Puli Basin by the method of satellite remote sensing and field observation. Since the Puli Basin is bordered by the mountains with steep topography and dense vegetation, we applied Persistent Scatter Interferometric SAR (PSI) to monitor the long term deformation. Our works show that this area has undergone a continuing deformation. This deformation can be explained as the compression of the west-moving Central Range. This Interferometric result can be compared with our field observation to examine the activity of faults of this area.