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Beijing plain is a strong earthquake tectonic area in China. There was a Sanhe-Pinggu earthquake with Ms8 that happened in1679. The seismogenic fault of this earthquake is called Xiadian fault. Our work found fault with a similar strike and opposite dip in the west of the Xiadian fault, which is called the Xiadian west fault in this paper. Six shallow seismic profiles have been constructed to determine the location of the fault in Sanhe city, and the late Quaternary activity of the fault is studied with the method of combined drilling, magnetic susceptibility logging, and luminescence dating. The results of shallow seismic exploration show that the fault is zigzag and generally strikes NE and inclines NW. According to the core histogram and logging curves of ten boreholes and eight effective dating data, the buried depth of the upper breakpoint of the concealed fault is about 12 m, which dislocates the late Pleistocene strata. The effective dating result of this set of strata is 36.52 ±5.39 ka. The vertical slip rate has been about 0.075± 0.023 mm/a since the late Pleistocene and about 0.058 ± 0.030 mm/a since the late period of the late Pleistocene. It can be inferred that the Xiadian west fault is probably a part of the seismogenic structure of the Sanhe-Pinggu Ms8 earthquake that happened in 1679. In a broad sense, the Xiadian fault zone is likely to extend to the southwest along the Xiadian west fault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thick Quaternary alluvial and floodplain sediments in north Hebei Plain provide important information for understanding local paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic variations. A 120.8 m drilled core (SHBZK-1) was recovered to determine the late Pleistocene climatic fluctuations, sedimentary environment and their coevolutionary relationship. Laboratory analysis, including grain size distribution, magnetic susceptibility, and optical stimulated luminescence dating, was carried out. Lithofacies and grain size showed that the sediments are of fluvial origin and contain two subfaces: river sand bar and flood plain. The good correlation between magnetic susceptibility and grain size show that climate change is the main factor controlling the variation of sedimentary environment in Hebei Plain, rather than tectonic factors. Furthermore, variations of the magnetic susceptibility and lithofacies reflect the intensity and fluctuations of Asian monsoons and couple well with glacial-interglacial cycles, suggesting that the variation of ice volume in the Northern Hemisphere drives climate change in the Hebei Plain, which, in turn, regulates the variation of the sedimentary environment and facies through controlling precipitation changes, as well as the input amount of magnetic minerals. This research provides a useful continental archive for understanding the late Pleistocene environmental and climatic variation and suggests the prevalence of climate-driven environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]