Pulsed rise and growth of the Tibetan Plateau to its northern margin since ca. 30 Ma

Abstract

Significance The formation of the Qaidam basin in the northeastern Tibet marked the onset of crustal deformation that propagated from the Indo-Asia collision zone to the northern margins of the Tibetan Plateau during the Cenozoic time. This paper presents magnetostratigraphies constrained by apatite fission-track ages that document the formation of the Qaidam basin at ca. 30 Ma, much younger than previous estimates of 65 to 50 Ma. Armed with chronology, the Qaidam basin–provenance analyses reveal pulsed deformation of the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau beginning first at ca. 30 Ma and subsequently at ca. 10 Ma, timing suggesting close links to the removal of the mantle lithosphere beneath different portions of the Tibetan Plateau.