controls on back arc basin formation the relationship between subduction and back arc spreading has been well known since the early days of plate tectonics however the reasons why back arc basins are associated with some subduction systems but not all has remained elusive we examine the kinematic controls on subduction and back arc basins for both the present day and cenozoic to differentiate between the major competing hypotheses for back arc basin formation and to explain their temporal and spatial distribution our new data set of subduction and back arc basin parameters uses a new set of paleo oceanic age grids muller et al 2005 associated with a moving atlantic indian ocean hot spot reference frame o neill et al 2005 the plate model includes detailed reconstructed spreading histories of back arc basins based on marine geophysical and satellite gravity data our combined rotation and oceanic paleo age model provides the age distribution of subducting lithosphere through space and time convergence rates and the absolute motion of the downgoing and overriding plates we find that back arc basins develop when the age of subducting normal oceanic lithosphere is greater than 55 million years additionally we establish an age dip relationship showing that the intermediate dip angle of the subducting slab is always greater than 30 with back arc spreading our results suggest that back arc basin formation is always preceded by an absolute motion of the overriding plate away from the subduction hinge thereby creating accommodation space between the overriding and subducting plates once back arc extension is established it continues regardless of overriding plate motion indicating back arc spreading is not a simple consequence of overriding plate behaviour the landward migration of the overriding plate as a precursor to back arc extension may indicate that extension on the overriding plate is influenced by the oceanward lateral flow of the mantle however once back arc extension is established rollback of the subduction hinge appears to be the primary force responsible for the continued creation of accommodation space our analysis indicates the driving mechanism for back arc extension is a combination of surface kinematics properties of the downgoing slab the effect of lateral mantle flow on the slab and mantle wedge dynamics

mantle dynamics uplift of the tibetan plateau and the indian monsoon convective removal of lower lithosphere beneath the tibetan plateau can account for a rapid increase in the mean elevation of the tibetan plateau of 1000 m or more in a few million years such uplift seems to be required by abrupt tectonic and environmental changes in asia and the indian ocean in late cenozoic time the composition of basaltic volcanism in northern tibet which apparently began at about 13 ma implies melting of lithosphere not asthenosphere the most plausible mechanism for rapid heat transfer to the midlithosphere is by convective removal of deeper lithosphere and its replacement by hotter asthenosphere the initiation of normal faulting in tibet at about 8 3 ma suggests that the plateau underwent an appreciable increase in elevation at that time an increase due solely to the isostatic response to crustal thickening caused by india s penetration into eurasia should have been slow and could not have triggered normal faulting another process such as removal of relatively cold dense lower lithosphere must have caused a supplemental uplift of the surface folding and faulting of the indo australian plate south of india the most prominent oceanic intraplate deformation on earth began between about 7 5 and 8 ma and indicates an increased north south compressional stress within the indo australian plate a tibetan uplift of only 1000 m if the result of removal of lower lithosphere should have increased the compressional stress that the plateau applies to india and that resists india s northward movement from an amount too small to fold oceanic lithosphere to one sufficient to do so the climate of the equatorial indian ocean and southern asia changed at about 6 9 ma monsoonal winds apparently strengthened northern pakistan became more arid but weathering of rock in the eastern himalaya apparently increased because of its high altitude and lateral extent the tibetan plateau provides a heat source at midlatitudes that should oppose classical symmetric hadley circulation between the equator and temperate latitudes and that should help to drive an essentially opposite circulation characteristic of summer monsoons for the simple case of axisymmetric heating no dependence on longitude of an atmosphere without dissipation theoretical analyses by hou lindzen and plumb show that an axisymmetric heat source displaced from the equator can drive a much stronger meridianal monsoonlike circulation than such a source centered on the equator but only if heating exceeds a threshold whose level increases with the latitude of the heat source because heating of the atmosphere over tibet should increase monotonically with elevation of the plateau a modest uplift 1000 2500 m of tibet already of substantial extent and height might have been sufficient to exceed a threshold necessary for a strong monsoon the virtual simultaneity of these phenomena suggests that uplift was rapid approximately 1000 m to 2500 m in a few million years moreover nearly simultaneously with the late miocene strengthening of the monsoon the calcite compensation depth in the oceans dropped plants using the relatively efficient c4 pathway for photosynthesis evolved rapidly and atmospheric co2 seems to have decreased suggesting causal relationships and positive feedbacks among these phenomena both a supplemental uplift of the himalaya the southern edge of tibet and a strengthened monsoon may have accelerated erosion and weathering of silicate rock in the himalaya that in turn enhanced extraction of co2 from the atmosphere thus these correlations offer some support for links between plateau uplift a downdrawing of co2 from the atmosphere and global climate change as proposed by raymo ruddiman and froehlich mantle dynamics beneath mountain belts not only may profoundly affect tectonic processes near and far from the belts but might also play an important role in altering regional and global climates

persistently low asian paleolatitudes implications for the india asia collision history 1 paleomagnetism provides independent paleolatitude constraints on the india asia convergence however implied cenozoic latitudinal convergence within asia thousands of km largely exceeds geologic estimates of tectonic shortening hundreds of km this discrepancy may result from a notoriously low bias in paleomagnetically determined cenozoic paleolatitudes in asia we provide here new paleomagnetic data from cenozoic mongolian volcanic rocks and from chinese paleogene sediments corrected from the depositional bias of inclination shallowing these results combined with similar asian data sets confirm that paleolatitudes are still 5 10 lower than predicted by the paleomagnetic apparent polar wander path apwp for asia between 50 and 20 ma inclination shallowing being excluded from the selected data sets we investigate the likeliness of other proposed mechanisms for this discrepancy 1 more southerly positions of asia than expected by the apwp due to apwp inaccuracies rather than eurasian non rigidity or 2 non dipolar geomagnetic field contributions fully explaining this discrepancy by only one of these mechanisms would imply either unrealistically large 10 apwp inaccuracies or unrealistically large octupolar field contributions up to 16 a combination of these mechanisms is found more likely to have produced the observed latitudinal discrepancy but their respective contributions cannot be quantified given the still relatively low amount and poor quality of cenozoic paleomagnetic data from stable cratons of asia india and europe by allowing for reasonable time dependant non dipolar contributions and a slight 5 apwp bias the latitudinal discrepancy can be resolved and the excessive amounts of intra asian shortening decrease to values in line with tectonic shortening from structural studies

seismic reflection evidence for a dangerous grounds miniplate no extrusion origin for the south china sea the collision of india and asia has caused large strike slip faults to form in east asia resulting in the extrusion of crustal blocks toward the southeast since the eocene as a result of the indentation of rigid india into asia it has been suggested that the south china sea opened as a result of relative motion between a rigid indochina sundaland block and china alternative models propose that rifting and seafloor spreading were driven by trench forces to the south we test these competing models by analysis of seismic reflection profiles across the boundary between sundaland and the southern rifted margin known as the dangerous grounds we show that the southern boundary of the dangerous grounds is a subduction zone that jammed in the middle miocene to the west the dangerous grounds are bounded by a strike slip zone also active until similar to 16 ma that becomes diffuse south of the now inactive south china sea seafloor spreading center we place the western edge of the dangerous grounds just to the east of the natuna arch lupar line the west baram line is confirmed as originating as a major strike slip fault within the dangerous grounds and is continuous with the red river fault zone because the dangerous grounds were independent of sundaland until similar to 6 ma its motion cannot have been constrained by motion of this block making extrusion impossible as a mechanism to rift the south china sea se motion by both the dangerous grounds and sundaland suggests subduction forces were the primary trigger for plate motions our reconstruction places a similar to 280 km upper limit on the motion on the red river fault and a similar to 1400 km width to the paleo south china sea

latest marine horizon north of qomolangma mt everest implications for closure of tethys seaway and collision tectonics the newly discovered marine horizon at zhepure syncline north of qomolangma revises timing of the closure of the eastern neo tethys seaway in the central himalayas the marine pengqu formation conformably overlies a lutetian shallow water carbonate platform and comprises shales interbedded with sandstones deposited in a neritic shelf environment the strata are dated by nannofossils and foraminifera as late early lutetian to late priabonian age np15 np20 deposited 47 34 ma indicating that the final closure of the tethys seaway in this region occurred at 34 ma the newly discovered strata provide evidence about emplacement of a major thrust sheet south of southern tibet prior to 37 ma which affected the regional climate

a simple raster based model for flood inundation simulation in this paper the development of a new model for simulating flood inundation is outlined the model is designed to operate with high resolution raster digital elevation models which are becoming increasingly available for many lowland floodplain rivers and is based on what we hypothesise to be the simplest possible process representation capable of simulating dynamic flood inundation this consists of a one dimensional kinematic wave approximation for channel flow solved using an explicit finite difference scheme and a two dimensional diffusion wave representation of floodplain flow the model is applied to a 35 km reach of the river meuse in the netherlands using only published data sources and used to simulate a large flood event that occurred in january 1995 this event was chosen as air photo and synthetic aperture radar sar data for flood inundation extent are available to enable rigorous validation of the developed model 100 50 and 25 m resolution models were constructed and compared to two other inundation prediction techniques a planar approximation to the free surface and a relatively coarse resolution two dimensional finite element scheme the model developed in this paper outperforms both the simpler and more complex process representations with the best fit simulation correctly predicting 81 9 of inundated and non inundated areas this compares with 69 5 for the best fit planar surface and 63 8 for the best fit finite element code however when applied solely to the 7 km of river below the upstream gauging station at borgharen the planar model performs almost as well 83 7 correct as the raster model 85 5 correct this is due to the proximity of the gauge which acts as a control point for construction of the planar surface and the fact that here low lying areas of the floodplain are hydraulically connected to the channel importantly though it is impossible to generalise such application rules and thus we cannot specify a priori where the planar approximation will work simulations also indicate that for this event at least dynamic effects are relatively unimportant for prediction of peak inundation lastly consideration of errors in typically available gauging station and inundation extent data shows the raster based model to be close to the current prediction limit for this class of problem q 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

a subduction zone reference frame based on slab geometry and subduction partitioning of plate motion and trench migration 1 the geometry of subducted slabs that interact with the transition zone depends critically on the partitioning of the subduction velocity vs at the surface into its subducting plate motion component vsp and trench migration component vt geodynamic models of progressive subduction demonstrate such dependence with five distinct slab geometries and corresponding partitioning ratios vsp vs slab draping vsp vs 0 5 slab draping with recumbent folds 0 5 vsp vs 0 8 slab piling 0 8 vsp vs 1 2 slab roll over with recumbent folds 1 2 vsp vs 1 5 and slab roll over vsp vs 1 5 the model findings have been applied to subduction zones in nature with well resolved slab geometries for which subduction partitioning ratios have been calculated during the last 20 million years in two global reference frames the indo atlantic and pacific hotspot reference frames the model nature comparison determines in which reference frame subduction partitioning ratios are most in agreement with observed slab geometries in the indo atlantic frame five out of five selected subduction zone segments with well resolved slab geometries plate velocities and trench velocities japan izu bonin mariana tonga kermadec agree with the geodynamic model predictions as calculated subduction partitioning ratios match the observed slab geometries in the pacific frame the partitioning ratio of only one subduction zone segment izu bonin matches observations it is thus concluded that the indo atlantic hotspot reference frame is preferred over the pacific one as a subduction zone reference frame in which to describe plate motions subduction kinematics and mantle flow

mesozoic cenozoic rift drift sequence of asian fragments from gondwanaland abstract the university of cambridge atlas map plotting computer program has been used to plot a reconstruction of the dispersal of continental blocks from eastern gondwanaland from the late jurassic 160 ma until the late miocene 10 ma the geological basis for the reconstruction rests on the concept of south tibet burma western thailand malaya and sumatra having been part of the eastern gondwana continent during the late palaeozoic and early mesozoic the reconstruction is also based on the view that these asian continental blocks were rifted from eastern gondwanaland in the late jurassic this rifting episode gave rise to the continental margin of central new guinea and northern australia it was associated with the sea floor spreading anomalies preserved in the floor of the northeastern indian ocean the model considers the indication of crustal uplift in the middle jurassic followed by profound subsidence in the cretaceous and palaeogene exposed in the islands of the outer banda arc from seram to timor and the similar jurassic cretaceous facies in eastern sulawesi implies that these areas formed part of this rifted northern margin of australia in the jurassic subsequent tectonic collision and associated major strike slip movements have deformed and disrupted these rock sequences during the cainozoic the date of the rifting that removed south tibet burma western thailand and malaya from gondwanaland is controversial the indications in favour of the rifting episode having occurred in the jurassic rather than in the permo triassic are stratigraphie structural observations on the northwestern australian shelf in the banda arc and in central new guinea the identification of the continental blocks removed by this rifting is based partly on stratigraphie correlation with the banda arc and new guinea and partly on indications that the age of collision of tibet burma western thailand and malaya with asia was a late cretaceous event and not triassic jurassic as is generally held there are very few reliable land based palaeomagnetic measurements to constrain the movements of these dispersed continental fragments from gondwanaland the computer generated map reconstructions put forward here fit the available indian ocean sea floor spreading data although they are not unique solutions much of the critical ocean floor data associated with the rifting and dispersal of these continental fragments has been destroyed in the tectonic collision processes that occurred at the asian continental margin

sediment sources and dispersion as revealed by single grain 40ar 39ar ages of detrital muscovite from carboniferous and cretaceous rocks in mainland nova scotiageological survey of canada contribution 20090289 single grain ages of detrital muscovite from 15 sand stone samples from the lower carboniferous horton group and the lower cretaceous chaswood formation of central nova scotia were used to infer the nature of the early carboniferous unroofing of the meguma terrane and the reworking of carboniferous rocks in the early cretaceous in the western windsor basin a sample from the oldest horton group rocks yielded ages principally between ca 400 and 380 ma suggesting that most of the muscovite present came from the metamorphic rocks of the meguma terrane but was variably reset by the intrusion of the south mountain batholith at ca 380 ma other samples in this part of the basin show partial post depositional resetting younger horton group metamorphic rocks in the eastern windsor basin contain many grains with ages of ca 370 360 ma suggesting derivation from the central core of the south mountain batholith or the musquodoboit pluton horton group sandstones from the western part of the st marys basin co

adjustment of a spaceborne dem for use in floodplain hydrodynamic modeling summary precise digital elevation models dems are required for the accurate modeling of floodplain hydrodynamics the accuracy of currently available spaceborne dems however is hindered by a variety of errors which reduce the flow connectivity between river channels and the surrounding floodplains here we introduce a new algorithm for adjusting a spaceborne dem which utilizes the information from a prescribed drainage networks dataset the algorithm is designed to remove all the pits in the spaceborne dem caused by vegetation canopies sub pixel sized structures and random radar speckles while minimizing the amount of modification required for removing the pits the proposed algorithm was applied to the srtm3 dem with reference to the drainage network information in the hydrosheds flow direction map with consideration of the systematic errors in the srmt3 dem small channels connecting floodplains were successfully implemented into the adjusted dem the accuracy of the adjusted dem was validated using hydrodynamic simulations with the lisflood fp model in a middle reach of the amazon river the simulated water surface elevations and flooded areas with the adjusted dem shows better agreement to observation data when compared to the results from the original srtm3 dem the flow connectivity ensured by the dem adjustment algorithm is found to be essential for representing realistic water exchanges between river channels and floodplains in hydrodynamics modeling

a high accuracy map of global terrain elevations spaceborne digital elevation models dems are a fundamental input for many geoscience studies but they still include nonnegligible height errors here we introduce a high accuracy global dem at 3 resolution 90 m at the equator by eliminating major error components from existing dems we separated absolute bias stripe noise speckle noise and tree height bias using multiple satellite data sets and filtering techniques after the error removal land areas mapped with 2 m or better vertical accuracy were increased from 39 to 58 significant improvements were found in flat regions where height errors larger than topography variability and landscapes such as river networks and hill valley structures became clearly represented we found the topography slope of previous dems was largely distorted in most of world major floodplains e g ganges nile niger and mekong and swamp forests e g amazon congo and vasyugan the newly developed dem will enhance many geoscience applications which are terrain dependent

regional flood dynamics in a bifurcating mega delta simulated in a global river model in this paper we show the importance of bifurcation channels for flow in river mega deltas through the use of a new computational scheme implemented in the global hydrodynamic model cama flood catchment based macro scale floodplain model first we developed a new river network map based on srtm3 dem shuttle radar topography mission 3 arc second digital elevation model and hydrosheds hydrological data and maps based on shuttle elevation derivatives at multiple scales which includes bifurcation channels next we implemented a new bifurcation scheme in cama flood capable of routing flow along this network and used the model to simulate the mekong river we show that in the mekong delta such channels route about 50 of total flow and that their representation is essential for realistic hydrodynamic simulations a simulation without bifurcation channels was obviously unrealistic because no flow occurred between the mainstem and adjacent channels even when their water level difference was 6 m the bifurcation channels are extracted from globally available data sets thus it is straightforward to expand the proposed scheme to global scale studies

development of the global width database for large rivers river width is a fundamental parameter of river hydrodynamic simulations but no global scale river width database based on observed water bodies has yet been developed here we present a new algorithm that automatically calculates river width from satellite based water masks and flow direction maps the global width database for large rivers gwd lr is developed by applying the algorithm to the srtm water body database and the hydrosheds flow direction map both bank to bank river width and effective river width excluding islands are calculated for river channels between 60s and 60n the effective river width of gwd lr is compared with existing river width databases for the congo and mississippi rivers the effective river width of the gwd lr is slightly narrower compared to the existing databases but the relative difference is within 20 for most river channels as the river width of the gwd lr is calculated along the river channels of the hydrosheds flow direction map it is relatively straightforward to apply the gwd lr to global and continental scale river modeling

global plate velocities from the global positioning system we have analyzed 204 days of global positioning system gps data from the global gps network spanning january 1991 through march 1996 on the basis of these gps coordinate solutions we have estimated velocities for 38 sites mostly located on the interiors of the africa antarctica australia eurasia nazca north america pacific and south america plates the uncertainties of the horizontal velocity components range from 1 2 to 5 0 mm yr with the exception of sites on the pacific and nazca plates the gps velocities agree with absolute plate model predictions within 95 confidence for most of the sites in north america antarctica and eurasia the agreement is better than 2 mm yr we find no persuasive evidence for significant vertical motions 3 standard deviations except at four sites three of these four were sites constrained to geodetic reference frame velocities the gps velocities were then used to estimate angular velocities for eight tectonic plates absolute angular velocities derived from the gps data agree with the no net rotation nnr nuvel 1a model within 95 confidence except for the pacific plate our pole of rotation for the pacific plate lies 11 5 west of the nnr nuvel 1a pole with an angular speed 10 faster our relative angular velocities agree with nuvel 1a except for some involving the pacific plate while our pacific north america angular velocity differs significantly from nuvel 1a our model and nuvel 1a predict very small differences in relative motion along the pacific north america plate boundary itself our pacific australia and pacific eurasia angular velocities are significantly faster than nuvel 1a predicting more rapid convergence at these two plate boundaries along the east pacific rise our pacific nazca angular velocity agrees in both rate and azimuth with nuvel 1a

paleomagnetism of cretaceous to lower tertiary rocks from southwestern sichuan a revisit abstract a re study has been carried out on the cretaceous to lower tertiary rocks from southwestern sichuan province on the south china block the characteristics remanent magnetization chrm resolved from the paleocene eocene leidashu formation is of dual polarity and very shallow inclination the anomalouslylow paleolatitude 6 9 6 3 n indicated by the inclination is not supported by geological evidence from this region and is probably due to inclination error related to depositional and or post depositional processes a positive fold test as well as the prevalence of normal polarity suggests that the chrm of the mid upper cretaceous xiaoba formation might be acquired during the cretaceous long normal superchron clns the tilt corrected mean direction of the xiaoba formation d i 8 1 38 8 95 6 6 n 18 sites is not significantly different from a preliminary result d i 357 6 31 6 95 8 6 n 12 samples we reported earlier for the collective xiaoba and leidashu formations the resultant paleopole 81 5 n 220 9 e a95 7 1 is coincident with other cretaceous poles for the chinese blocks comparison with the eurasian apparent polar wander path apwp indicates neither significant rotation nor latitudinal translation of the study area relative to eurasia the newly obtained mean direction for the xiaoba formation is believed to be more reliable than our earlier result since it is based on a larger sample size and is apparently free from effects of the shallow inclination observed in the leidashu formation and should supercede our previous preliminary result the paleopole derived from sevenentes of the lower cretaceous feitianshan formation 69 0 n 204 6 e a95 4 3 deviates from the track from the late jurassic to late cretaceous poles the deviation might be reduced by further sampling

mantle flow in subduction systems the mantle wedge flow field and implications for wedge processes 1 the mantle wedge above subducting slabs is associated with many important processes including the transport of melt and volatiles our understanding of mantle wedge dynamics is incomplete as the mantle flow field above subducting slabs remains poorly understood because seismic anisotropy is a consequence of deformation measurements of shear wave splitting can constrain the geometry of mantle flow in order to identify processes that make first order contributions to the pattern of wedge flow we have compiled a data set of local s splitting measurements from mantle wedges worldwide there is a large amount of variability in splitting parameters with average delay times ranging from 0 1 to 0 3 s up to 1 0 1 5 s and large variations in fast directions we tested for relationships between splitting parameters and a variety of parameters related to subduction processes we also explicitly tested the predictions made by 10 different models that have been proposed to explain splitting patterns in the mantle wedge we find that no simple model can explain all of the trends observed in the global data set mantle wedge flow is likely controlled by a combination of downdip motion of the slab trench migration ambient mantle flow small scale convection proximity to slab edges and slab morphology with the relative contributions of these in any given subduction system controlled by the subduction kinematics and mantle rheology there is also a likely contribution from b type olivine and or serpentinite fabric in many subduction zones governed by the local thermal structure and volatile distribution

okinawa trough backarc basin early tectonic and magmatic evolution the okinawa trough lying between japan and taiwan is a backarc basin formed by extension within the continental lithosphere behind the ryukyu trench arc system stress directions associated with the two last extensional phases in the southwestern okinawa trough have been deduced from a comparison with analog modeling the direction of extension is n 150 o for the pleistocene phase of extension 2 0 1 ma and n 170 o for the late pleistocene holocene phase of extension 0 1 0 ma the present day ryukyu volcanic arc a narrow continuous feature extending from japan to taiwan is located on the eastern side of the okinawa trough 80 100 km above the wadati benioff zone the minimum depth for emplacement of arc magmatism scarce present day backarc volcanism appears in the middle and southern okinawa trough within linear en echelon bathymetric depressions a n045 o oriented seamount volcanic chain cuts across obliquely the southwestern okinawa trough and lies in the direct line of extension of the gagua ridge a n s linear volcanic feature of the philippine sea plate associated with this extension of the gagua ridge a large reentrant located at the base of the ryukyu prism the uplift of part of the nanao forearc basin and the deformation of the sedimentary arc suggest that the voluminous cross backarc volcanism could be tied to the subduction of the gagua ridge located there at a depth of 80 100 km beneath the backarc basin a second area of anomalous volcanism has been identified in the middle okinawa trough in the ene extension of the daito ridge a wnw ese 400 km long volcanic feature of the philippine sea plate we suggest that the gagua and daito ridges initially induced stress at the base of the arc which is still brittle and cracks propagated through the overlying brittle lithosphere allowing magmas with arc affinities to erupt at the seafloor this excessive magmatism reaches the seafloor through conduits which preferentially follow in their shallowest portion the crustal normal faults of the backarc rifts the okinawa trough is consequently still in an early stage of evolving from arc type to backarc activity

the geological evolution of the tibetan plateau the geological evolution of the tibetan plateau is best viewed in a context broader than the india eurasia collision zone after collision about 50 million years ago crust was shortened in western and central tibet while large fragments of lithosphere moved from the collision zone toward areas of trench rollback in the western pacific and indonesia cessation of rapid pacific trench migration 15 to 20 million years ago coincided with a slowing of fragment extrusion beyond the plateau and probably contributed to the onset of rapid surface uplift and crustal thickening in eastern tibet the latter appear to result from rapid eastward flow of the deep crust probably within crustal channels imaged seismically beneath eastern tibet these events mark a transition to the modern structural system that currently accommodates deformation within tibet

cenozoic basins in northern taiwan and tectonic implications for the development of the eastern asian continental margin abstract north of taiwan four offshore tertiary basins extend seaward from the inner shelf of the east china sea to the west of the okinawa trough these basins are characterized by rifting features with ne sw trending half grabens and fault blocks episodic rifting events have taken place from paleocene to early miocene with the eastward shift of depositional centers the paleogene rift basins are filled primarily with lacustrine to shallow marine sediments but also contain a slight amount of pyroclastics and basaltic flows regional subsidence has dominated during the late tertiary and these paleogene half grabens have united into a large marginal sea basin overlain by a neogene sedimentary wedge of shallow marine sediments a fifth basin the paleogene hsuehshan half graben trough in present day northern taiwan has been deformed into mountain ranges by the collision of the luzon arc with the eastern asian margin during the late cenozoic era the tectonic development of eastern asian margin in northern taiwan region has evolved into two phases first the eastward retreat of the west pacific subduction zone and accompanied rifting of continental crust occurred during late cretaceous to eocene times second as the intensity of rifting decreased thermal subsidence of eastern asian margin prevailed and subsequently caused a tilting seaward continental margin on which a large marginal sea basin rests collision of the luzon arc with the eastern asian margin in taiwan deformed the paleogene hseuhshan trough into mountain ranges late miocene to present

evidence for long term diffuse deformation of the lithosphere of the equatorial indian ocean the presence of large earthquakes east west striking folds and thrust faults in sediments and east west striking undulations of wavelength 200 km in topography and gravity shows that the equatorial indian ocean is the locus of unusual deformation1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 this deformation has been interpreted as a diffuse boundary between two tectonic plates9 10 11 12 13 seismic stratigraphy and deep sea drilling at two locations in the bengal fan indicate that the deformation began 7 5 8 0 myr ago3 14 15 here however we show using plate reconructions that motion across this diffuse oceanic plate boundary began more than 10 myr earlier than previously inferred and that the amount of north south convergence across the boundary through the central indian basin has been significantly greater than the convergence estimated from seismic profiles the relative plate velocity accommodated across the central indian basin has varied with time and has been as fast as 6 mm yr 1 about half the separation rate of earth s slowest spreading mid ocean ridge the earliest interval of measurable motion which began more than 18 myr ago may coincide with rapid denudation of the tibetan plateau from 21 myr to 15 17 myr ref 16 the present motion across the central indian basin began no earlier than 11 myr following an earlier interval of slower motion from 18 to 11 myr and may have begun at 8 myr when the tibetan plateau is thought to have attained its maximum elevation16 17

continental scale river flow in climate models abstract the hydrologic cycle is a major part of the global climate system there is an atmospheric flux of water from the ocean surface to the continents the cycle is closed by return flow in rivers in this paper a river routing model is developed to use with grid box climate models for the whole earth the routing model needs an algorithm for the river mass flow and a river direction file which has been compiled for 4 5 and 20 2 5 resolutions river basins are defined by the direction files the river flow leaving each grid box depends on river and lake mass downstream distance and an effective flow speed that depends on topography as input the routing model uses monthly land source runoff from a 5 yr simulation of the nasa giss atmospheric climate model hansen et al the land source runoff from the 4 5 resolution model is quartered onto a 2 2 5 grid and the effect of grid resolution is examined monthly flow at the mouth of the world s major rivers is compared with observations and a

extensional fault arrays in strike slip and transtension abstract sedimentary basins developed under conditions of strike slip or transtension are subject to significant rotational strains yet faults developed in such regimes are commonly explained using simplified models that ignore rotation the heaves of extensional faults developed provide a means of quantifying this rotation for ideal strike slip simple shear the apparent stretch due to fault heaves can be related simply to shear strain at shear strains above 1 0 previously formed extensional faults begin to show inversion as reverse faults becoming fully inverted at 2 0 in transtensional basins the apparent stretch is related in addition to the initial orientation of the faults which may itself be related to the incremental strain in the stellarton basin of nova scotia canada fault heaves and orientations can be measured from subsurface mine plans measurements of these quantities indicate that strain was only mildly transtensional with a small the measurement of fault heaves potentially provides detailed information on strain wherever strike slip or transtensional basins have been explored in detail by seismic or other subsurface methods

eclogites in the french palaeozoic orogen geodynamic significance abstract eclogites are widespread in the devonian internal zone of the french palaeozoic orogen they occur in different tectonic settings either in high pressure low temperature or in high pressure high temperature environments they are tectonically incorporated into several major allochthonous units as demonstrated either by their blastomylonitic texture or by their being in evident disequilibrium with their country rocks the protoliths of the presently well identified eclogite bearing series present different typical associations depending on their present location the igneous series include within plate basalts normal and transitional morbs and even calc alkaline rocks they were erupted mostly during the palaeozoic although they sometimes contain inherited precambrian zircons further some of them may be remnants of old precambrian oceanic crust most of the eclogitic parageneses were generated during the earliest silurian tectonometamorphic climax either in low temperature or in high temperature conditions later they followed various retrograde courses in still geographically distinct low temperature or high temperature associations the basic rocks in the leptynolitic amphibolitic complex and particularly the eclogites thus provide sufficiently clear evidence to support a new geodynamic scenario implying one or several subordinate narrow tensional zones in a thinned but well developed continental crust rather than in a true oceanic domain

the hawaiian emperor bend older than expected the kink in the hawaiian emperor seamount chain in the pacific ocean was initiated 50 million years ago at a time when major plate motion changes occurred

development of a global 90m water body map using multi temporal landsat images abstract this paper describes the development of a global 3 arc second water body map g3wbm using an automated algorithm to process multi temporal landsat images from the global land survey gls database we used 33 890 scenes from 4 gls epochs in order to delineate a seamless water body map without cloud and ice snow gaps permanent water bodies were distinguished from temporal water covered areas by calculating the frequency of water body existence from overlapping multi temporal landsat scenes by analyzing the frequency of water body existence at 3 arc second resolution the g3wbm separates river channels and floodplains more clearly than previous studies this suggests that the use of multi temporal images is as important as analysis at a higher resolution for global water body mapping the global totals of delineated permanent water body area and temporal water covered area are 3 25 and 0 49 million km2 respectively which highlights the importance of river floodplain separation using multi temporal images the accuracy of the water body classification was validated in hokkaido japan and in the contiguous united states using an existing water body databases there was almost no commission error and about 70 of lakes 1 km2 shows relative water area error

origin of marginal basins of the nw pacific and their plate tectonic reconstructions abstract geometry of basins can indicate their tectonic origin whether they are small or large the basins of bohai gulf south china sea east china sea japan sea andaman sea okhotsk sea and bering sea have typical geometry of dextral pull apart the java makassar celebes and sulu seas basins together with grabens in borneo also comprise a local dextral transform margin type basin system similar to the central and southern parts of the shanxi basin in geometry the overall configuration of the philippine sea resembles a typical sinistral transpressional pop up structure these marginal basins except the philippine sea basin generally have similar or compatible rift history in the cenozoic but there do be some differences in the rifting history between major basins or their sub basins due to local differences in tectonic settings rifting kinematics of each of these marginal basins can be explained by dextral pull apart or transtension these marginal basins except the philippine sea basin constitute a gigantic linked dextral pull apart basin system formation of the gigantic linked dextral pull apart basin system in the nw pacific is due to nne to ene ward motion of east eurasia this mainly was a response to the indo asia collision which started about 50 ma ago the displacement of east eurasia can be estimated using three aspects 1 the magnitude of pull apart of the dextral pull apart basin system 2 paleomagnetic data from eastern eurasia and the region around the arctic and 3 the shortening deficits in the large tibetan plateau all the three aspects indicate that there was a large amount 1000 to 1200 km of northward motion of the south china block and compatible movements of other blocks in eastern eurasia during the rifting period of the basin system such a large amount of motion of the eastern eurasia region contradicts any traditional rigid plate tectonic reconstruction but agrees with the more recent concepts of non rigidity of both continental and oceanic lithosphere over geological times based on these three estimates the method developed for restoration of diffuse deformation of the eurasian plate and the region around the arctic and the related kinematics of the marginal basins we present plate tectonic reconstructions of these marginal basins in global plate tectonic settings at the four key times 50 35 15 and 5 ma the plate tectonic reconstructions show that the first order rift stage and post rift stage of the marginal basins are correlated with the first order slow uplift stage and the rapid uplift stage of the tibetan plateau respectively the proto philippine sea basin was trapped as a sinistral transpressional pop up structure at a position that was 20 south of its present position at about 50 ma ago or earlier while the japan arc migrated eastward during the rifting period of the japan sea basin the shikoku basin opened and the parece vela basin widened

neogene arc continent collision in sabah northern borneo malaysia abstract the neogene evolution of sabah can be interpreted in terms of an arc continent collision initiated during early middle miocene time and followed by intraplate shortening the latter being active in this area at the present day the volcanic arc of late oligocene middle miocene age is imbricated with melanges and thrust northwestward on a polyphase deformed turbiditic sequence of late cretaceous middle miocene age crocker range intraplate shortening is seen in the thrusting and folding offshore sabah along the palawan north borneo trench and also by broad open folds and strike slip faulting in the previously sutured terranes this collision can either be interpreted as the final stage of southward subduction of the hypothetical proto south china sea or the result of back thrusting of the sulu volcanic arc resulting from the subduction of the celebes sea toward the north

a subgrid channel model for simulating river hydraulics and floodplain inundation over large and data sparse areas 1 this paper presents a new computationally efficient hydraulic model for simulating the spatially distributed dynamics of water surface elevation wave speed and inundation extent over large data sparse domains the numerical scheme is based on an extension of the hydraulic model lisflood fp to include a subgrid scale representation of channelized flows which allows river channels with any width below that of the grid resolution to be simulated the scheme is shown to be numerically stable and scalable before being applied to an 800 km reach of the river niger in mali the niger application focused on the performance of four different model structures a model without channels two dimensional 2 d model a model without a floodplain one dimensional 1 d model a model of the main channels and floodplain 1 d 2 d model and the subgrid approach developed here inclusion of both the channel network and the floodplain was shown to be essential meaning that large scale models of this region including routing models for land surface schemes will require a floodplain component including subgrid scale channels on the floodplain changed inundation dynamics over the delta significantly and increased simulation accuracy in terms of water level wave propagation speed and inundation extent furthermore only the subgrid model showed a consistent parameterization when calibrated against either gauge or icesat water level data suggesting that connectivity provided by small channels is a strong control on the hydraulics of the floodplain or at the very least that low resolution gridded hydraulic models require additional connectivity to represent the delta flow dynamics

on the relationships between slab dip back arc stress upper plate absolute motion and crustal nature in subduction zones 1 statistical analysis of modern oceanic subduction zone parameters such as the age of a downgoing plate or the absolute plate motions is performed in order to investigate which parameter controls the dip of a slab and conversely what the influence of slab geometry is on upper plate behavior for that purpose parameters have been determined from global databases along 159 transects from all subduction zones that are not perturbed by nearby collision or ridge plateau seamount subduction on the basis of tomographic images slabs that penetrate through or lie on the 670 km discontinuity are also identified the results of the statistical analysis are as follows 1 back arc stress correlates with slab dip i e back arc spreading is observed for deep dips deeper than 125 km larger than 50 whereas back arc shortening occurs only for deep dips less than 30 2 slab dip correlates with absolute motion of the overriding plate the correlation is even better when the slab lies on or even more penetrates through the 670 km discontinuity 3 slabs dip more steeply by about 20 on average beneath oceanic overriding plates than beneath continental ones 4 slabs dip more steeply on average by about 10 near edges 5 slab dip does not correlate with the magnitude of slab pull the age of subducting lithosphere at the trench the thermal regime of the subducting lithosphere the convergence rate or the subduction polarity east versus west the present study provides evidence that the upper plate absolute motion plays an important role on slab dip as well as on upper plate strain retreating overriding plates are often oceanic ones and thus may partially explain the steeper slab dips beneath oceanic upper plates one can infer that low slab dips correlate well with compression in continental advancing upper plates whereas steep dips are often associated with extension in oceanic retreating upper plates excess weight of old slabs is often counterbalanced by other forces probably asthenospheric in origin such as lateral mantle flow near slab edges or anchor forces to determine slab dip

pull apart stepover structures in an asphalted road surface a geological curiosity abstract an unusual and perhaps unique example of strike slip displacement and pull apart stepover structures is described from a relatively newly asphalted road surface in central norway the structures which include pull apart basins show a remarkable similarity to those developed both in natural strike slip fault systems and in physical analogue models a surface of decollement is believed to have developed at the interface between the new asphalt layer and the old bitumen emulsified planed metalled surface perhaps aided by the presence of excess rainwater gravitationally induced slippage of the asphalt on this 1 in 15 gradient hill road actually occurred several months after the asphalt had been laid

structural styles and tectonic evolution of the seram trough indonesia abstract the seram trough is located in the northern part of the banda arc australian collision zone in eastern indonesia and is currently the site of contraction between the bird s head of new guinea and seram island it has been interpreted as a subduction trench an intra continental thrust zone and foredeep and a zone of strike slip faulting recently acquired 2d seismic lines clarify its tectonic evolution and relationship to the bird s head folding in the early pliocene formed an anticlinorium running from misool to the onin peninsula of irian jaya and produced a newly recognised angular unconformity the unconformity truncates sediments as old as middle jurassic and is an ancient topographic surface with significant relief it was later folded and now dips south towards the trough where it is covered by up to 3 km of sediments initial tilting of the unconformity surface was accompanied by deposition of a transgressive sequence which can be traced into the trough this is overlain by two sequences which prograde towards the trough these sequences show progressive rotation of the unconformity surface gravitational displacement of sediments into the trough and thrusting which continues to the present day contraction occurred in the trough after the early pliocene and is younger than the previously suggested late miocene age thrust faults in the trough deform sediments deposited above the unconformity and detach at the unconformity surface on seram thrust faults repeat mesozoic miocene sequences and probably detach at their contact with metamorphic basement the detachment surface must cut through the mesozoic miocene sequence between seram and the trough this work suggests the seram trough is not a subduction trench but a foredeep produced in response to loading by the developing fold and thrust belt of seram with an associated peripheral bulge to the north the seram trough is interpreted to be a very young zone of thrusting within the australian continental margin

normal faulting in central tibet since at least 13 5 myr ago tectonic models for the evolution of the tibetan plateau interpret observed east west thinning of the upper crust to be the result of either increased potential energy of elevated crust1 or geodynamic processes that may be unrelated to plateau formation2 3 4 5 6 a key piece of information needed to evaluate these models is the timing of deformation within the plateau the onset of normal faulting has been estimated to have commenced in southern tibet between about 14 myr ago7 and about 8 myr ago8 and in central tibet about 4 myr ago9 here however we report a minimum age of approximately 13 5 myr for the onset of graben formation in central tibet based on mineralization ages determined with rb sr and 40ar 39ar data that post date a major graben bounding normal fault these data along with evidence for prolonged activity of normal faulting in this and other tibetan grabens support models that relate normal faulting to processes occurring beneath the plateau thinning of the upper crust is most plausibly the result of potential energy increases resulting from spatially and temporally heterogeneous changes in thermal structure and density distribution within the crust and upper mantle beneath tibet this is supported by recent geophysical and geological data10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 which indicate that spatial heterogeneity exists in both the tibetan crust and lithospheric mantle

displacement along the red river fault constrained by extension estimates and plate reconstructions significant e w extension and or compression must have been generated by displacements along the red river fault rrf since its curvature does not match a small circle centered at the euler pole for the indochina south china plate pair the amount of extension perpendicular to the rrf offshore vietnam depends on the magnitude of left lateral displacement along the rrf in general the larger the left lateral displacement along the fault the smaller the amount of e w extension all purely strike slip models of the opening of the south china sea that assume large displacements 250 km along the rrf encounter major problems because they imply little extension or even considerable shortening offshore east vietnam this is inconsistent with the presence of large elongated basins offshore vietnam using a plate tectonic model we compare continental extension values implied by different magnitudes of displacement along the rrf with crustal stretching estimates derived from 2 d profiles modeled from gravity data we utilize 2 d gravity forward models to restore the extended continental margin crust to its original position prior to extension we find that substantial amounts of extension for offshore vietnam can only be modeled assuming moderate displacements along the rrf compatible with the presence of a southward subducting proto south china sea the total amount of ene wsw extension offshore northern vietnam constrained by our 2 d gravity profiles and gravity inversion increases southward from 36 to 89 km along the yinggehai basin these values of ene wsw extension are consistent with 250 km of left lateral displacement along the rrf