Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau

Two end member models of how the high elevations in Tibet formed are (i) continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow of the crust and mantle of the entire plateau and (ii) time-dependent, localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks. Recent studies of Cenozoic deformation, magmatism, a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2001-11, Vol.294 (5547), p.1671-1677
Main Authors: Tapponnier, Paul, Zhiqin, Xu, Roger, Françoise, Meyer, Bertrand, Arnaud, Nicolas, Wittlinger, Gérard, Jingsui, Yang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cartography
Continental drift
Earth
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Evidence
Exact sciences and technology
Geology
India
Internal geophysics
Lithospheres
Mantle
Natural history
Paleogeophysics
Plate Tectonics
Plateaus
Review
Shear zones
Solid-earth geophysics, tectonophysics, gravimetry
Strike slip faults
Strikes
Subduction
Tectonics
Tectonics. Structural geology. Plate tectonics
Tibet
Topography
Volcanism
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Summary:Two end member models of how the high elevations in Tibet formed are (i) continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow of the crust and mantle of the entire plateau and (ii) time-dependent, localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks. Recent studies of Cenozoic deformation, magmatism, and seismic structure lend support to the latter. Since India collided with Asia ∼55 million years ago, the rise of the high Tibetan plateau likely occurred in three main steps, by successive growth and uplift of 300- to 500-kilometer-wide crustal thrust-wedges. The crust thickened, while the mantle, decoupled beneath gently dipping shear zones, did not. Sediment infilling, bathtub-like, of dammed intermontane basins formed flat high plains at each step. The existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas. Subduction was oblique and accompanied by extrusion along the left lateral strike-slip faults that slice Tibet's east side. These mechanisms, akin to plate tectonics hidden by thickening crust, with slip-partitioning, account for the dominant growth of the Tibet Plateau toward the east and northeast.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.105978