Tectonic Evolution of the Northeastern Margin of the Tibetan Plateau, China PDF Download

Author: She Fa Chen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geology, Structural
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Author: Andrew Vincent Zuza
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
How the Tibetan Plateau was constructed and evolved in response to ongoing India-Asia convergence since 65-55 Ma is fundamental in understanding processes of continental tectonics. Furthermore, the kinematics and mechanisms of plateau formation and continental deformation have implications for the complex interactions between tectonics, erosion, and climate change in Earth's most recent history. To provide insights into these processes, my research is focused on the development of the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, which is defined by the 350-km-wide and 1300-km-long Cenozoic Qilian Shan-Nan Shan thrust belt. This active fold and thrust system overprinted a region that has a complex pre-Cenozoic tectonic history involving multiple phases of Proterozoic basement deformation and early Paleozoic orogeny. In this work, I integrate geologic mapping, balanced cross section construction and restoration, seismic reflection interpretation, geochronology, thermobarometry, geodetic data analysis, and analogue modeling to investigate the tectonic development of northern Tibet over a range of timescales, from the Proterozoic evolution of central Asian cratons to the active deformation that is shaping the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. The magnitude, style, and distribution of Cenozoic shortening strain across northern Tibet can be used to test competing models of continental deformation. The shortening distribution across the Qilian Shan-Nan Shan thrust belt, derived from surface mapping and subsurface seismic reflection profiles, suggests that the modern thickness and elevation of the northern plateau has developed as a result of southward continental underthrusting of Asia beneath Tibet and distributed crustal thickening. The thrust systems in northern Tibet link to the east with > ~1000-km-long parallel left-slip strike-slip faults (i.e., the Haiyuan, Qinling, and Kunlun faults). The along-strike variation of fault offsets and pervasive off-fault deformation along these strike-slip faults create a strain pattern that departs from the expectations of the classic plate-like rigid-body motion and flow-like distributed deformation models of continental deformation. Instead, I propose that the major strike-slip faults formed as a non-rigid bookshelf-fault system where clockwise rotation of northern Tibet drives left-slip bookshelf faulting and related off-strike-slip fault deformation. In addition, I employ a stress-shadow model that uses the characteristic spacing of strike-slip faults and seismogenic-zone thickness estimates across northern Tibet and central Asia to estimate fault strength and the regional stress state. The strike-slip faults in Asia have a low coefficient of fault friction (~0.15), which may explain why deformation penetrates more than 3500 km into Asia from the Himalayan collisional front, and why the interior of Asia is prone to large (M > 7.0) devastating earthquakes along major strike-slip faults. A well-constrained understanding of Cenozoic deformation across northern Tibet allows for better reconstructions of the Proterozoic and Paleozoic tectonics. Field relationships and geochronologic studies reveal that the early Paleozoic Qilian suture, which bounds the southern margin of the North China craton, records the Ordovician-early Silurian closure of the Qilian Ocean via south-dipping subduction beneath the Qaidam continent. The evolution of this ocean and North China's southern margin has implications for reconstructions of Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic Earth, including the development of the Tethyan and Paleo-Asian Oceanic Domains. By restoring the Phanerozoic deformation along the northern and southern margins of the Tarim and North China cratons, I propose and test a hypothesis that these cratons once stretched westward across present-day Asia, possibly as far west as Baltica, as a continuous Neoproterozoic continent.

Author: B. C. Burchfiel
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813724449
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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"This volume includes a variety of papers on the tectonics of the Tibetan Plateau and the Iranian Plateau that were presented at the first joint meeting between the Geological Society of America and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Each paper deals with a different aspect of the geology and/or the geophysics of the tectonic evolution of the plateau. Although most of the papers discuss areas in the northeastern part of the plateau, one concentrates on the complexity of the Cenozoic shear zones in Yunnan and one focuses on the late Cenozoic extensional tectonism along the western margin of the Iranian Plateau. Several papers discuss aspects of Tibetan tectonics not covered in any other papers and arrive at unique interpretations."--Publisher's website.

Author: An Yin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780521480499
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666

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Book Description
The evolution of Asia has largely occurred over the last 400 million years, and continues today. Seeing a continent in the act of assembly provides a rare opportunity to study the processes by which continents are constructed and internally modified. This book is a collection of twenty-one contributions on the tectonic evolution of Asia. The book is divided into five parts: geodynamic models of the Cenozoic deformation in Asia, seismotectonics, geological evolution of the Himalaya–Karakoram Ranges, tectonics of the Cenozoic Indo–Asia collision, and Mesozoic–Paleozoic assembly of Asia. Several important problems are addressed in detail, including the origin of the Tibetan Plateau, the nature of ultra-high pressure metamorphism in east-central Asia, the accretion of microcontinents to Asia, and the accommodation mechanisms of the Indo-Asian collision. The Tectonic Evolution of Asia provides an authoritative description of our current understanding of Asian tectonics and continental growth for graduate students and researchers.

Author: Rowan Emma Vernon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Junsheng Nie
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813725070
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Author: Anthony John Reid
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geology
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Author: Zhongbao Zhao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Richard Gloaguen
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 9781862393264
Category : Boundary layer (Meteorology)
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Despite agreement on first-order features and mechanisms, critical aspects of the origin and evolution of the Tibetan Plateau, such as the exact timing and nature of collision, the initiation of plateau uplift, and the evolution of its height and width, are disputed, untested or unknown. This book gathers papers dealing with the growth and collapse of the Tibetan Plateau. The timing, the underlying mechanisms, their interactions and the induced surface shaping, contributing to the Tibetan Plateau evolution are tightly linked via coupled and feedback processes. We present interdisciplinary contributions allowing insight into the complex interactions between lithospheric dynamics, topography building, erosion, hydrological processes and atmospheric coupling. The book is structured in four parts: early processes in the plateau formation; recent growth of the Tibetan Plateau; mechanisms of plateau growth; and plateau uplift, surface processes and the monsoon.

Author: S. Mukherjee
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 1862397031
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The Himalayan mountain belt, which developed during the India–Asia collision starting about 55 Ma ago, is a dramatically active orogen and it is regarded as the classic collisional orogen. It is characterized by an impressively continuous 2500 km of tectonic units, thrusts and normal faults, as well as large volumes of high-grade metamorphic rocks and granites exposed at the surface. This constitutes an invaluable field laboratory, where amazing crustal sections can be observed directly in very deep gorges. It is possible to unravel the tectonic and metamorphic evolution of litho-units, to observe the mechanisms of exhumation of deep-seated rocks and the propagation of the deformation. Himalayan tectonics has been the target of many studies from numerous international researchers over the years. In the last 15 years there has been an explosion of data and theories from both geological and geophysical perspectives. This book presents the results of integrated multidisciplinary studies, including geology, petrology, magmatism, geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics, of the structures and processes affecting the continental lithosphere. These processes and their spatial and temporal evolution have major consequences on the geometry and kinematics of the India–Eurasia collision zone.