Journal ArticleDOI
Crustal-scale duplexing beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture in the western Himalaya
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TLDR
In this article, the authors presented a seismic reflection profile across the western Himalaya at 81.5°E, and showed that the Main Himalayan Thrust dips ∼20° to ∼60 km depth beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture, approaching a continuous Moho reflection at ∼70-75 km depth.Abstract:
The fate of the Indian plate during continental collision with Asian terranes, and the proportion of the Indian crust that is underthrust or subducted beneath Tibet as opposed to transferred to the upper (Himalayan) plate, are much debated. The active geometry of low-angle underthrusting or subduction of the Indian plate beneath the Lesser and Greater Himalayan thrust sheets is well known from seismic imaging. Previously, only lower-resolution images of the Main Himalayan Thrust have been obtained beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture that separates Indian and Asian rocks at the surface. It remains controversial whether the orogenic wedge between the Main Himalayan Thrust and the Yarlung Zangbo suture, formed of Indian crust transferred to the upper plate, is evolving by thrust-faulting in a critical-taper wedge or by southward extrusion of a ductile channel flow. Here we present a seismic reflection profile across the western Himalaya at 81.5° E, and show that the Main Himalayan Thrust dips ∼20° to ∼60 km depth beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture, approaching a continuous Moho reflection at ∼70–75 km depth. The Indian crust being transported northwards beyond the Yarlung Zangbo suture is no more than ∼15 km thick, reduced from its original ∼40 km thickness by transfer of material from the lower plate to the upper plate through crustal-scale duplexing. The fate of the Indian plate during collision with Asia is debated. Seismic images of the western Himalaya reveal large-scale thrust faults that transfer Indian crust upwards, into the overriding Asian plate.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Mesozoic─Cenozoic geological evolution of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and working tectonic hypotheses
Paul Kapp,Peter G. DeCelles +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors synthesize the Triassic through Cenozoic geology of the central Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and presents their tectonic interpretations in a time series of schematic lithosphere-scale cross-sections and paleogeographic maps.
Journal ArticleDOI
Terrestrial heat flow of continental China: Updated dataset and tectonic implications
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an updated heat flow dataset and map in continental China, which includes 862 to 1230 observations since the year 1999 and the sites cover the major tectonic units, although their spatial distribution remains uneven.
Journal ArticleDOI
Revised chronology of central Tibet uplift (Lunpola Basin).
Xiaomin Fang,Xiaomin Fang,Guillaume Dupont-Nivet,Guillaume Dupont-Nivet,Chengshan Wang,Chunhui Song,Qingquan Meng,Weilin Zhang,Junsheng Nie,Tao Zhang,Ziqiang Mao,Yu Chen +11 more
TL;DR: Revised age control and paleoelevations reveal Eocene low central Tibet until ~26 Ma ago when an extensive plateau began to form, which supports the existence in the Eocene of low-elevation longitudinally oriented narrow regions until their uplift in the early Miocene.
Journal ArticleDOI
Underthrusting and duplexing beneath the northern Tibetan Plateau and the evolution of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen
TL;DR: In this article, a geologic traverse across the Cenozoic Qilian Shan thrust belt is used to infer the style of deformation across the active thrust belt, which is consistent with this thrust system remaining a stationary northern boundary to the Tibetan Plateau since the early CENozoic.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Himalayan tectonics explained by extrusion of a low-viscosity crustal channel coupled to focused surface denudation
TL;DR: C coupled thermal–mechanical numerical models are used to show that these two processes—channel flow and ductile extrusion—may be dynamically linked through the effects of surface denudation focused at the edge of a plateau that is underlain by low-viscosity material.
Journal ArticleDOI
Partially Molten Middle Crust Beneath Southern Tibet: Synthesis of Project INDEPTH Results
K. D. Nelson,Wenjin Zhao,Lawrence D. Brown,J. Kuo,Jinkai Che,Xianwen Liu,Simon L. Klemperer,Yizhaq Makovsky,Rolf Meissner,James Mechie,Rainer Kind,Friedemann Wenzel,James Ni,J. Nabelek,Chen Le-shou,Handong Tan,Wenbo Wei,Alan G. Jones,John R. Booker,Martyn Unsworth,William S.F. Kidd,M. Hauck,Douglas Alsdorf,A. Ross,M. Cogan,Changde Wu,Eric Sandvol,M. A. Edwards +27 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that during Neogene time the underthrusting Indian crust has acted as a plunger, displacing the molten middle crust to the north while at the same time contributing to this layer by melting and ductile flow.
Journal ArticleDOI
Adakites from continental collision zones: Melting of thickened lower crust beneath southern Tibet
Sun-Lin Chung,Dunyi Liu,Jianqing Ji,Mei Fei Chu,Hao-Yang Lee,Da Jen Wen,Ching-Hua Lo,Tung Yi Lee,Qing Qian,Qi Zhang +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reported the first example of such magmas from southern Tibet in an active continental collision environment, and their overall geochemical characteristics suggest an origin by melting of eclogites and/or garnet amphibolites in the lower part of thickened Tibetan crust.
Journal ArticleDOI
Underplating in the Himalaya-Tibet collision zone revealed by the Hi-CLIMB experiment.
John L. Nábělek,György Hetényi,Jérôme Vergne,Soma Nath Sapkota,Basant Kafle,Mei Jiang,Heping Su,John Chen,Bor-Shouh Huang +8 more
TL;DR: Using an 800-kilometer-long, densely spaced seismic array, an image of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Himalayas and the southern Tibetan Plateau is constructed, revealing in a continuous fashion the Main Himalayan thrust fault as it extends from a shallow depth under Nepal to the mid-crust under southern Tibet.
Journal ArticleDOI
Deep seismic reflection evidence for continental underthrusting beneath southern Tibet
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used deep seismic reflection profiling to image the structure of the crust of the Tethyan Himalaya and found that the Indian plate is underthrusting southern Tibet.
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