Abstract The Litang fault zone is an important seismogenic structure along the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. It caused the M7¼ earthquake in Litang in 1948 AD. The fault zone intersects the Sichuan–Tibet transportation corridor and poses a serious risk to its safe operation. This study, utilizing high‐resolution remote sensing interpretation, field geological verification, UAV photogrammetry, UAV LiDAR, paleoearthquake trench excavation, and AMS 14 C and OSL dating methods, reveals the geometric structure, slip rates, paleoearthquake sequence, and earthquake rupture segmentation of the Litang fault zone; analyzes the rupture distribution range of the 1729 AD Litang earthquake and estimates its magnitude. The study indicates that the Litang fault zone is a relatively immature strike‐slip fault, which has developed as a new active fault zone within the Northwestern Sichuan sub‐block during the southeastward material migration of the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. This reflects a transformation in the deformation model of the Northwestern Sichuan sub‐block crust from the ‘Rigid Block’ model to the ‘Continuous Deformation’ model.
ZHANG et al. (2025) studied this question.