Crustal structure of the Paleozoic Kunlun orogeny from an active-source seismic profile between Moba and Guide in East Tibet, China

Northward growth of the Qimen Tagh Range: A new model accounting for the Late Neogene strike-slip deformation of the SW Qaidam Basin

“…Jolivet et al, 2003;Zhang et al, 2011)) with most events occurring in the upper 10 to 15 km. This distribution pattern is similar to the depth-frequency distribution of seismicity over the entire Tibetan Plateau (Taylor and Yin, 2009), with exceptions where earthquakes might have occurred within the lower crust or upper lithospheric mantle (Chu et al, 2009).…”

Lateral variation of the strength of lithosphere across the eastern North China Craton: New constraints on lithospheric disruption

“…The high velocity anomalies (beneath a depth of 200 km) obtained from travel time tomography (Huang and Zhao, 2004) may be interpreted as an indicator of this delaminated lower crust or lithospheric mantle. Some geochemical studies proposed that underplating of the lower crust should take place beneath the NCC (Zhang et al, , 2011a(Zhang et al, , 2011b(Zhang et al, , 2011c(Zhang et al, , 2011d. The observed average P-wave velocity that Fig.…”

“…The presence of such a layer may provide evidence of the residual inland propagation of the Yellow sea rifting, caused by the back arc of the subduction that extends from Japan to Taiwan (Zhai et al, 2007). A common characteristic of all the conceptual models described above (Fan and Menzies, 1992;Xu, 2001;Gao et al, 2004;Xu et al, 2004Xu et al, , 2008Wu et al, 2005;Zheng et al, 2006;Fan et al, 2007;Zhu and Zheng, 2009;Zhang et al, 2011aZhang et al, , 2011bZhang et al, , 2011cZhang et al, , 2011d is the pronounced lithospheric removal that, in comparison with other parts of the profile, is particularly evident beneath the central segment of the lithosphere-scale transect across the eastern part of the NCC. We herein focus on the lateral variation of the lithospheric thickness as determined by surface wave tomography, which is consistent with the results of gravity inversion.…”

“…In general, the lithospheric thinning beneath the northern part of the NCC is more pronounced than it is beneath its southern part. Tectonic processes such as lithospheric delamination (Gao et al, 2004;Wu et al, 2005), thermal erosion of the lithospheric keel (Zheng et al, 2006;Xu et al, 2008), and the northward subduction of the Yangtze and the southward subduction of the Paleo-Asian Oceanic plate Zhai et al, 2007;Zhang et al, 2011aZhang et al, , 2011bZhang et al, , 2011cZhang et al, , 2011d, could all be responsible for the thinning of the lithosphere of the NCC. The greater thickness of the lithosphere to the south could be an effect of the Himalayan orogeny (Fan and Menzies, 1992;Liu et al, 2004), and the thinning of the lithosphere to the north could be correlated with the formation of Pacific back arcs (Zhu and Zheng, 2009).…”

“…Another possible explanation for the existence of the thick seismogenic layer beneath the NCP is that the brittle (seismogenic) layer has been thickened by some particular tectonic process, such as the underplating of the lower crust, accompanied by an alteration of the lithospheric mantle from the collision of NCC with Yangtze plate and Paleo-Asian Ocean plate, evidenced by systematic geochemical studies (Zhang et al, , 2011a(Zhang et al, , 2011b(Zhang et al, , 2011c(Zhang et al, , 2011dSantosh et al, 2012). This implies that part (or all) of the BDTL (the middle crust) has been transformed into a brittle layer.…”