http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~yin/05-Publications/papers/091-Yin-2006-ESR.pdf

Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the Himalayan orogen as constrained by along-strike variation of structural geometry, exhumation history, and foreland sedimentation

The surface uplift history of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya is among the most interesting topics in geosciences because of its effect on regional and global climate during Cenozoic time, its influence on monsoon intensity, and its reflection of the dynamics of continental plateaus. Models of plateau growth vary in time, from pre-India-Asia collision (e.g., ≈100 Ma ago) to gradual uplift after the India-Asia collision (e.g., ≈55 Ma ago) and to more recent abrupt uplift (<7 Ma ago), and vary in space, from northward stepwise growth of topography to simultaneous surface uplift across the plateau. Here, we improve that understanding by presenting geologic and geophysical data from north-central Tibet, including magnetostratigraphy, sedimentology, paleocurrent measurements, and 40Ar/39Ar and fission-track studies, to show that the central plateau was elevated by 40 Ma ago. Regions south and north of the central plateau gained elevation significantly later. During Eocene time, the northern boundary of the protoplateau was in the region of the Tanggula Shan. Elevation gain started in pre-Eocene time in the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes and expanded throughout the Neogene toward its present southern and northern margins in the Himalaya and Qilian Shan.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/105/13/4987.full.pdf

Constraints on the early uplift history of the Tibetan Plateau

Plant molecular phylogeography in China and adjacent regions: Tracing the genetic imprints of Quaternary climate and environmental change in the world's most diverse temperate flora.

Tectonics and history of the Andaman Sea region

River networks evolve as migrating drainage divides reshape river basins and change network topology by capture of river channels. We demonstrate that a characteristic metric of river network geometry gauges the horizontal motion of drainage divides. Assessing this metric throughout a landscape maps the dynamic states of entire river networks, revealing diverse conditions: Drainage divides in the Loess Plateau of China appear stationary; the young topography of Taiwan has migrating divides driving adjustment of major basins; and rivers draining the ancient landscape of the southeastern United States are reorganizing in response to escarpment retreat and coastal advance. The ability to measure the dynamic reorganization of river basins presents opportunities to examine landscape-scale interactions among tectonics, erosion, and ecology.

Dynamic reorganization of river basins.

[1] A new regional compilation of the drainage history in southeastern Tibet suggests that the modern rivers draining the plateau margin were once tributaries to a single, southward flowing system which drained into the South China Sea. Disruption of the paleo-drainage occurred by river capture and reversal prior to or coeval with the initiation of Miocene (?) uplift in eastern Tibet, including ∼2000 m of surface uplift of the lower plateau margin since reversal of the flow direction of the Yangtze River. Despite lateral changes in course due to capture and reversal, the superposition of eastward and southward draining rivers that cross the southeastern plateau margin suggests that uplift has occurred over long wavelengths (>1000 km), mimicking the present low-gradient topographic slope. Thus reorganization of drainage lines by capture and reversal events explains most of the peculiar patterns of the eastern plateau rivers, without having to appeal to large-magnitude tectonic shear.

/pdf/surface-uplift-tectonics-and-erosion-of-eastern-tibet-from-4j8wany0uh.pdf

E. Wang

Papers

Surface uplift, tectonics, and erosion of eastern Tibet from large-scale drainage patterns