Differential growth of the northern Tibetan margin: evidence for oblique stepwise rise of the Tibetan Plateau.

ABSTRACT: Models of how high elevations formed across Tibet predict: (a) the continuous thickening of a "viscous sheet"; (b) time-dependent, oblique stepwise growth; and (c) synchronous deformation across Tibet that accompanied collision. Our new observations may shed light on this issue. Here, we use ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar and (U-Th)/He thermochronology from massifs in the hanging walls of thrust structures along the Kunlun Belt, the first-order orogenic range at the northern Tibetan margin, to elucidate the exhumation history. The results show that these massifs, and hence the plateau margin, were subject to slow, steady exhumation during the Early Cenozoic, followed by a pulse of accelerated exhumation during 40-35 Ma. The exhumation rate increases westward (from ~0.22 to 0.34 and 0.5 mm

SUBMITTER: Wang F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5259709 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature