Tectonic Evolution of the Tibetan Plateau: A Working Hypothesis Based on the Archipelago Model of Orogenesis

Tectonic evolution of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

“…To date, many studies on the tectonic units and the evolution of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have been published over several decades (Huang, 1945;S ßengör, 1984;Chang et al, 1986;Wang and Mo, 1995;Hsü et al, 1995;Pan et al, 1997Pan et al, , 2002b. This paper, based on 177 recently finished 1:250,000 scale geological maps and associated studies, presents new tectonic units of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau delineated by performing a temporal-spatial structural analysis of the comparative tectonics and the tectonic facies to examine the temporal-spatial distribution, nature, and regional geophysics of key geological events.…”

“…During the Carboniferous, the southward subduction of the Bangong-Nujiang Tethyan Ocean (Hsü et al, 1995;Pan et al, 1997Pan et al, , 2009 led to the shift from a stable passive continental margin to an active continental margin at the northern margin of Gondwana, the emplacement of the continental margin arc volcanism in the Gangdese in the Carboniferous-Permian, and the tholeiitic magmatism in the Himalaya in the Permian (Garzanti et al, 1999;Zhu et al, 2010). As a result, a paleogeography, from north to south, comprises the Carboniferous-Permian continental margin arc in the Gangdese, the back-arc rift basin in the Yarlung Zangbo, and the continental margin rift basin in the Himalaya present at the northern margin of Gondwana (Fig.…”

Early cretaceous subduction-related adakite-like rocks of the Gangdese Belt, southern Tibet: Products of slab melting and subsequent melt–peridotite interaction?

“…1a). The magmatism has been interpreted to have originated from the southward subduction of Bangong Tso-Nujiang oceanic crust (Hsü et al, 1995;Mo et al, 2005;Pan et al, 2006;Zhu et al, 2006Zhu et al, , 2008a or the northward low-angle or flat-slab subduction of Neo-Tethyan oceanic crust Kapp et al, 2003Kapp et al, , 2005Kapp et al, , 2007Leier et al, 2007).…”

Tectonic evolution of the Western Kunlun orogenic belt in northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: Evidence from zircon SHRIMP and LA-ICP-MS U-Pb geochronology

“…It is generally accepted that the Western Kunlun Range resulted from the collision between the Tarim and Qiangtang blocks in early Mesozoic time [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and was subjected to Cenozoic deformation by the far-field effect of the India-Asia collision on the southern side of the Tibetan Plateau [6,7,11] . However, controversies over the Kudi ophiolite [3,5,9,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and the poor geochronological studies on the so-called Precambrian basement within the orogenic belt have constrained the understanding of the Precambrian and Palaeozoic-early Mesozoic tectonic evolution of the Western Kunlun Range. Here we report new geochronological results from the Precambrian metamorphic rocks and some igneous rocks distributed in Western Kunlun Range, and in combination with field observations, we explore the formation ages of the so-called Precambrian basement and their tectonic implications.…”