Qiangtang terrane
Terrane of the Tibetan Plateau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.[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]
