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.
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]
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.
S2CID202574726.