The Tanlu Fault, short for the Tancheng-Lujiang fault zone, is a colossal lithospheric fracture that slices northeast across eastern China for more than 2,400 kilometres, running from the coast near Bohai Bay through Anhui, Shandong and Liaoning toward the Russian border. It is one of the longest and most deeply rooted fault systems in East Asia, cutting the entire crust and reaching into the upper mantle.
Predominantly a right-lateral strike-slip system with a long geological history reaching back hundreds of millions of years, the Tanlu Fault records enormous cumulative horizontal offset. Today it remains seismically active, separating distinct crustal blocks and controlling the distribution of sedimentary basins and volcanic fields along its trace.
The fault is infamous for the catastrophic 1668 Tancheng earthquake in Shandong, estimated at magnitude 8 to 8.5 and among the deadliest inland quakes in Chinese history, killing tens of thousands. This event, together with continued moderate seismicity, makes the Tanlu zone a primary target for earthquake hazard studies in densely populated eastern China.