Skardu Basin is a northwest-trending intermontane basin along the Indus River in the Karakoram Himalaya Mountains of Pakistan. Seismotectonic domain boundaries in the Karakoram Himalaya commonly cross lithologic and some older structural boundaries. Four major structural-seismotectonic domains exist in the Skardu area: the Himalayan seismic zone, characterized by thrust tectonics; the complex Hindu Kush–Pamir seismic zone; the Skardu quiet zone, characterized by strike-slip, extensional, and rotational tectonics with relatively little seismicity; and the southern edge of Eurasian lithosphere (Tarim–Kun Lun–Tibet) northeast of the Karakoram fault. The Skardu quiet zone is interpreted to be within the Himalayan thrust prism, above an aseismic detachment along which stable sliding or ductile faulting accommodates displacement. Stresses transmitted into the Skardu quiet zone laterally from the Himalayan seismic zone toward Eurasia and perhaps upward from the inferred basal detachment result in gross clockwise rotation, translation to the north-northwest, and a right-lateral sense of shear in the Skardu region.
Landsat lineaments defined by major drainages suggest an array of fractures and faults in the Skardu quiet zone. Field data suggest that the lineaments generally reflect distributed shear along myriad small faults rather than displacement exclusively localized on major, discrete fault surfaces. Extensive glacial and fluvial erosion have accentuated trends characterized by relatively dense fracturing and faulting. At its confluence with the Indus at Skardu, the Shigar River flows through a breach that may have originated as a pull-apart structure similar to the pull-apart basin along the upper Sutlej River.
The preserved vestiges of the upper Cenozoic Bunthang sedimentary sequence reflect Skardu’s early basin phase. Uplift along the Nanga Parbat–Haramosh syntaxis and along the northeastern margin of the Himalayan seismic zone may have contributed to the ponding of the Indus River in the Skardu Basin during Bunthang time. These axes of uplift may be related to movement of the Himalayan thrust wedge from a region of easy basal slip (Skardu quiet zone) to a region of increased resistance to basal slip (Himalayan seismic zone, or, in the case of the NP-H syntaxis, the Hindu Kush-Pamir seismic areas). Regional uplift within the Skardu quiet zone may reflect thickening of the thrust prism in response to variations in shear resistance along the detachment.
Quaternary glacial lake beds located on the floor of Skardu Basin are generally undeformed in the western half of the basin. Local deformation within the lake beds in the eastern half of the basin is probably due to interaction with glaciers.
