Late Oligocene-early Miocene unroofing in the Chinese Tian Shan: an early effect of the India-Asia collision

M. S. Hendrix, T. A. Dumitru, S. A. Graham

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Abstract

Apatite fission-track data indicate that Mesozoic strata exposed on the northern flank of the Chinese Tian Shan underwent ~4-5 km of late Cenozoic unroofting, beginning at ~24 Ma. This age apparently dates initial reactivation of the northern Tian Shan in response to the India-Asia collision, which continues to raise the mountain range today. Numerous studies of the Himalaya and Tibet suggest that a major shift from extrusion-dominated to crustal thickening-dominated tectonics occurred in latest Oligocene-early Miocene time, approximately coincident wwith the start of unroofing in the Tian Shan. This suggests that Tian Shan unroofing was a distant effect of that shift within the collision zone. -Authors

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)487-490
Number of pages4
JournalGeology
Volume22
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 1994

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