Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau

• DOI: 10.1126/science.105978
• Publication Date: 2002-07-27T09:47:15Z
• Authors: Paul Tapponnier; Xu Zhiqin; Françoise Roger; Bertrand Meyer; Nicolas Arnaud; Gérard Wittlinger; Yang Jingsui
• Keywords: Mountain formation

Two end member models of how the high elevations in Tibet formed are (i) continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow crust mantle entire plateau (ii) time-dependent, localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks. Recent studies Cenozoic deformation, magmatism, seismic structure lend support to latter. Since India collided with Asia ∼55 million years ago, rise Tibetan likely occurred three main steps, by successive growth uplift 300- 500-kilometer-wide crustal thrust-wedges. The thickened, while mantle, decoupled beneath gently dipping zones, did not. Sediment infilling, bathtub-like, dammed intermontane basins flat plains at each step. existence magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs Asian subducted one after another under ranges north Himalayas. Subduction was oblique accompanied extrusion along left lateral strike-slip faults slice Tibet's east side. These mechanisms, akin plate tectonics hidden crust, slip-partitioning, account for dominant Plateau toward northeast.