French and Chinese scientists on Thursday concluded a field study of a major earthquake site west of the Mount Kunlun Pass in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

During the survey, the fourth of its kind ever organized by the China Seismological Bureau, scientists obtained vital data about the fracture zones around Bukadpan Peak that were left by an quake measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale which struck on Nov. 14, 2001, according to Xu Xiwei, a research fellow with the Institute of Geology under the bureau.

Xu, who is also China's chief scientist in activity structure research, said the 11-member survey team with six scientists, including two prestigious researchers from France, spent two weekson the field study and on Thursday returned to Golmud, a crucial city in western Qinghai, after having traversed through Hoh Xil No-Man Zone where the quake took place.

The data obtained from the four surveys has filled the country's lack of parameters of kinematics about surface fracture zones in earthquakes north of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and will offer essential information on the present changes in the earth's crust at the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and its adjacent areas, said Xu.

Seismological investigations will also provide China with important references for avoiding an quake-prone active fault zoneand reducing quake losses while locating and building major projects in the country's campaign to explore the vast west, Xu added.

The Nov. 14, 2001 quake was the biggest on the Chinese mainland. Since it took place in the Hoh Xil "no-man land" north of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the damage was limited, but the energy it produced left a 400 km-plus fracture belt on the ground, with the width ranging from dozens of meters to 1,000 meters at the southern foot of the Kunlun Mountains.

(People’s Daily November 29, 2003)