Qiangtang terrane explained

The Qiantang terrane is one of three main west-east-trending terranes of the Tibetan Plateau.

During the Triassic, a southward-directed subduction along its northern margin resulted in the Jin-Shajing suture, the limit between it and the Songpan-Ganzi terrane. During the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, the Lhasa terrane merged with its southern margin along the Bangong suture. This suture, the closure of part of the Tethys Ocean, transformed the Qiantang terrane into a large-scale anticline. The merging of the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes resulted in the uplift of a palaeoplateau known as the Qiangtang Plateau,^[1] which rapidly thinned later in the Cretaceous.^[2]

The Qiantang terrane is now located at 5000m (16,000feet) above sea level, but the timing of this uplift remains debated, with estimates ranging from the Pliocene-Pleistocene (3–5 ) to the Eocene (35 Mya) when the plateau was first denudated.

See also

Qiangtang terrane related (from south to north)

• Geology of the Himalaya
  • Indus Suture Zone Transhimalaya, includes following:
    • • Lhasa terrane Karakoram fault system
• High pressure metamorphic terranes along the Bangong-Nujiang Suture Zone
• Qiangtang terrane

References

Sources

• 10.1098/rsta.1988.0088 . Le Fort . P. . Cronin . V. S. . Granites in the Tectonic Evolution of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Southern Tibet . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences . 326 . 1589 . 1 September 1988 . 281–299 . 1988RSPTA.326..281F . 202574726 .
• Wang . Q. . Wyman . D. A. . Xu . J. . Wan . Y. . Li . C. . Zi . F. . Jiang . Z. . Qiu . H. . Chu . Z. . Zhao . Z. . Dong . Y. . Triassic Nb-enriched basalts, magnesian andesites, and adakites of the Qiangtang terrane (Central Tibet): evidence for metasomatism by slab-derived melts in the mantle wedge . 2008 . . 155 . 4 . 473–490 . 1 January 2020 . 10.1007/s00410-007-0253-1 . 2008CoMP..155..473W . 140614302 .
• Xu . Q. . Ding . L. . Zhang . L. . Cai . F. . Lai . Q. . Yang . D. . Liu-Zeng . J. . Paleogene high elevations in the Qiangtang Terrane, central Tibetan Plateau . 2013 . . 362 . 31–42 . 1 January 2020 . 10.1016/j.epsl.2012.11.058 . 2013E&PSL.362...31X .

Notes and References

1. Zhang . Chenyu . Wu . Lei . Chen . Wuke . Zhang . Yongshu . Xiao . Ancheng . Zhang . Junyong . Chen . Siyuan . Chen . Hanlin . 1 November 2020 . Early Cretaceous foreland-like Northeastern Qaidam Basin, Tibetan Plateau and its tectonic implications: Insights from sedimentary investigations, detrital zircon U–Pb analyses and seismic profiling . . 557 . 109912 . 10.1016/j.palaeo.2020.109912 . 2020PPP...557j9912Z . 225171627 . 7 December 2022.
2. Sun . Miao . Tang . Ju-Xing . Chen . Wei . Ma . Xu-Dong . Qu . Xiao-Ming . Song . Yang . Li . Xin-Yuan . Ding . Ji-Shun . March 2020 . Process of lithospheric delamination beneath the Lhasa–Qiangtang collision orogen: Constraints from the geochronology and geochemistry of Late Cretaceous volcanic rocks in the Lhasa terrane, central Tibet . . 356-357 . 105219 . 10.1016/j.lithos.2019.105219 . 210619771 . 7 December 2022.