The Qinling orogen and intracontinental orogen mechanisms

Paleozoic metamorphism in the Qinling orogen, Tongbai Mountains, central China

The Qinling orogen (Fig. 1) extends for over 2000 km across central China, separating the Archean and Proterozoic Sino-Korean block in the north from the Proterozoic Yangtze block in the south. Although the orogen has been recognized as a continental collision zone for some time, the nature, age, and duration of the collision have been the subject of considerable debate (see review in Hacker et...

U=Pb zircon ages constrain the architecture of the ultrahigh-pressure Qinling–Dabie Orogen, China

New SHRIMP and TIMS zircon ages, Ar=Ar ages, and eclogite locations contribute significantly to our understanding of the ultrahigh-pressure Dabie Shan. (1) The geographic extent of the Yangtze craton that was subducted to ultrahigh pressure extends to the northern edge of the Dabie Shan. (2) The northern half of the Dabie Shan is a magmatic complex, intruded over a 10-Myr interval between 137 a...

Origin of unusual HREE-Mo-rich carbonatites in the Qinling orogen, China

Carbonatites, usually occurring within intra-continental rift-related settings, have strong light rare earth element (LREE) enrichment; they rarely contain economic heavy REE (HREE). Here, we report the identification of Late Triassic HREE-Mo-rich carbonatites in the northernmost Qinling orogen. The rocks contain abundant primary HREE minerals and molybdenite. Calcite-hosted fluid inclusions, i...

Elements of an orogen: regional trends in the geology of the appalachian-caledonian-hercynian-mauritanide orogen.

Channel flow and the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen: a critical review

The movement of a low-viscosity crustal layer in response to topographic loading provides a potential mechanism for (1) eastward flow of the Asian lower crust causing the peripheral growth of the Tibetan Plateau and (2) southward flow of the Indian middle crust to be extruded along the Himalayan topographic front. Thermomechanical models for channel flow link such extrusion to focused orographi...