Qiangtang terrane

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

Location of Qiangtang Terranes. Bangong-Nujiang Suture Zone separates it from the Lhasa Terrane, which in turn is separated by the Indus-Yarlung suture zone from the Himalayas in the south.

Tectonic map of the Himalaya, modified after Le Fort & Cronin (1988). Red is Transhimalaya. Green is Indus-Yarlung suture zone, north of which lies Lhasa terrane, follow by Bangong-Nujiang Suture Zone and then Qiangtang terrane.

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.^[1] This suture, the closure of part of the Tethys Ocean, transformed the Qiantang terrane into a large-scale anticline.^[2] The merging of the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes resulted in the uplift of a palaeoplateau known as the Qiangtang Plateau,^[3] which rapidly thinned later in the Cretaceous.^[4]

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

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

Notes

1. Wang et al. 2008, Geologic setting, p. 475
2. Xu et al. 2013, Geologic setting, pp. 32–33
3. 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". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 557: 109912. Bibcode:2020PPP...557j9912Z. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2020.109912. S2CID 225171627. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
4. 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". Lithos. 356–357: 105219. doi:10.1016/j.lithos.2019.105219. S2CID 210619771. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
5. Xu et al. 2013, Introduction, pp. 31–32

Sources

• Le Fort, P.; Cronin, V. S. (1 September 1988). "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): 281–299. Bibcode:1988RSPTA.326..281F. doi:10.1098/rsta.1988.0088. S2CID 202574726.
• Wang, Q.; Wyman, D. A.; Xu, J.; Wan, Y.; Li, C.; Zi, F.; Jiang, Z.; Qiu, H.; Chu, Z.; Zhao, Z.; Dong, Y. (2008). "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". Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology. 155 (4): 473–490. Bibcode:2008CoMP..155..473W. doi:10.1007/s00410-007-0253-1. S2CID 140614302. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
• Xu, Q.; Ding, L.; Zhang, L.; Cai, F.; Lai, Q.; Yang, D.; Liu-Zeng, J. (2013). "Paleogene high elevations in the Qiangtang Terrane, central Tibetan Plateau" (PDF). Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 362: 31–42. Bibcode:2013E&PSL.362...31X. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.11.058. Retrieved 1 January 2020.^{[dead link]}