upper mantle stratification by p and s receiver functions summary seismic stratification of the upper mantle is investigated by applying two complementary techniques to the records of the graefenberg array in southern germany the anisotropic p receiver function technique kosarev et al 1984 vinnik montagner 1996 is modified by using summary seismic events instead of individual events and different weighting functions instead of the same function for the harmonic angular analysis of the sv and t components of the pds phases the summary events provide better separation of the second azimuthal harmonic than the individual events the parameters of the second harmonics of sv and t thus evaluated should be similar if they reflect the effects of azimuthal anisotropy this can be used as a criterion to identify the anisotropy to detect the sdp phases and their azimuthal variations caused by azimuthal anisotropy we have developed a stacking technique which can be termed the s receiver function technique it includes axis rotation to separate interfering p and s arrivals determination of the principal m component of the s wave motion deconvolution of the p components of many recordings by their respective m components and stacking of the deconvolved p components with weights depending on the level of noise and the angle between the m direction and the backazimuth of the event both techniques yield consistent results for the graefenberg array as indicated by the p receiver functions the upper layer of the mantle between the moho and 80 km depth is anisotropic with dvs vs around 0 03 and the fast direction close to 20 clockwise from north the fast direction of anisotropy below this layer is around 110 the boundary between the upper and the lower anisotropic layers is manifested by the detectable pds and sdp converted phases shear wave splitting in sks is strongly dominated by azimuthal anisotropy in the lower layer asthenosphere

magnetic susceptibility anisotropy strain and progressive deformation in permian sediments from the maritime alps france abstract the relationships among magnetic susceptibility anisotropy finite strain and progressive deformation have been studied in permian red shales and slates of the maritime alps southeastern france these rocks contain deformed reduction spots which serve as finite strain indicators the magnetic fabric of undeformed regions is modified during deformation to yield characteristic magnetic susceptibility anisotropy patterns and a magnetic equivalent of the deformation path derived from strain measurements the magnetic fabric changes progressively from oblate to prolate and back to oblate as deformation increases the quantitative relationships between natural strain and magnetic anisotropy in these rocks have been determined they differ between the less and more deformed areas perhaps due to a change in deformation mechanism accompanying an increase in metamorphism the relationships provide a rapid means of strain determination using magnetic measurements but their variation emphasizes the need for local structural control

the heterogeneous upper mantle low velocity zone abstract the upper mantle low velocity zone lvz is a depth interval with slightly reduced seismic velocity compared to the surrounding depth intervals the zone is present below a relatively constant depth of 100 km in most continental parts of the world both in cratonic areas with high average velocity and tectonically active areas with low average velocity evidence for the low velocity zone arises from controlled and natural source seismology including studies of surface waves and of primary and multiple reflections of body waves from the bounding interfaces calculations of receiver functions and absolute velocity tomography the available data indicates a more pronounced reduction in seismic velocity and q value for s waves than p waves as well as high electrical conductivity in the lvz seismic waves are strongly scattered by the zone which demonstrates the existence of small scale heterogeneity the depth to the base of the lvz is systematically shallower in cold stable cratonic areas than in hot active regions of the world because of its global occurrence below a relative constant depth of 100 km the lvz cannot be explained by metamorphic or compositional variation and rheological changes calculated upper mantle temperatures indicate that the rocks are close to the solidus in an interval with variable thickness below 100 km depth provided that the rocks contain water and carbon dioxide the presence of even small amounts of such fluids in the mantle rocks will lower the solidus by several hundred degrees and introduce a characteristic kink on the solidus curve around 80 100 km depth the seismic velocities and q values are significantly reduced of rocks which are close to the solidus or contain small amounts of partial melt hence the lvz may be explained by upper mantle temperatures being close to the solidus in a depth interval below 100 km assuming that the rocks contain only limited amounts of fluids this mechanism may explain the low velocities q values and resistivity as well as the intrinsic scattering and the characteristic variation in thickness of the low velocity zone

palaeomagnetism of the ordovician dolerites of the crozon peninsula france summary in order to obtain a lower palaeozoic pole for the armorican massif and to test the origin of the ibero armorican arc the ordovician dolerites of the crozon peninsula have been palaeomagnetically studied the samples show a multicomponent magnetization which has been revealed by af and thermal demagnetization and thoroughly investigated with rock magnetic experiments polished section examinations and k ar dating four groups of directions have been recognized often superimposed on each other in an individual sample one component d has always the lowest blocking temperatures and coercivities and is considered to be of viscous origin acquired recently in situ or in the laboratory during storage two components a and b are interpreted to be of secondary origin and to correspond to the observed k ar age distribution between 300 and 190myr these ages represent the time interval between two regional thermo tectonic events associated with the hercynian orogeny and the intrusion of dykes related to the early opening of the central atlantic ocean and the bay of biscay a fourth component c could be of ordovician or younger palaeozoic age it is not clear whether the age of the magnetization is pre or post folding but a prefolding age would yield a direction of magnetization similar to ordovician results from the iberian peninsula the latter interpretation suggests a fairly high palaeolatitude which is in agreement with a glacio marine postulated for sediments overlying the dolerite sills

the palaeozoic variscan oceans revisited abstract geological evidence supported by biogeographical data and in accord with palaeomagnetic constraints indicates that one ocean models for the variscides should be discarded and confirms instead the existence of three gondwana derived microcontinents which were involved in the variscan collision avalonia north armorica franconia and thuringia subdivided by a failed vesser rift and south armorica central iberia armorica bohemia all divided by small oceans in addition parts of south eastern europe including adria and apulia are combined here under the new name of palaeo adria which was also peri gondwanan in the early palaeozoic oceanic separations were formed by the break up of the northern gondwana margin from the late cambrian onwards most of the oceans or seaways remained narrow but much like the alpine cenozoic oceans gave birth to orogenic belts with hp uhp metamorphism and extensive allochthons the saxo thuringian ocean between north and south armorica and the galicia moldanubian ocean between south armorica and palaeo adria only the rheic ocean between avalonia and peri gondwana was wide enough to be unambiguously recorded by biogeography and palaeomagnetism and its north western arm closed before or during the emsian in europe ridge subduction under the northernmost part of armorica in the emsian created the narrow and short lived rheno hercynian ocean it is that ocean and not the rheic whose opening and closure controlled the evolution of the rheno hercynian foldbelt in south west iberia south west england germany and moravia czech republic devonian magmatism and sedimentation set within belts of early variscan deformation and metamorphism are probably strike slip related the first arrival of flysch on the forelands and or the age of deformation of foreland sequences constrains the sequential closure of the variscan seaways galicia moldanubian in the givetian saxo thuringian in the early famennian rheno hercynian in the tournaisian additional mid to late devonian and partly early carboniferous magmatism and extension in the rheno hercynian saxo thuringian and galicia moldanubian basins overlapped with variscan geodynamics as strictly defined the early carboniferous episode was the start of episodic anorogenic heating which lasted until the permian and probably relates to tethys rifting

the chronology and stratigraphy of the alluvial terraces of the river dane valley cheshire n w england three groups of alluvial terraces together with the modern floodplain mark the postglacial development of the middle part of the dane valley cheshire these are a high terrace group of late pleistocene age a middle terrace group of late pleistocene to early holocene age a low terrace of mid late holocene age and a modern post ca 1840 ad floodplain a chronology of erosion deposition and landform development since mid holocene times is established in this paper on the basis of terrace morphology stratigraphy sedimentology soil analysis magnetic mineral analysis and four radiocarbon dates after dissection of the middle terrace during the early to mid holocene a long period of lateral activity by the river was followed by a major aggradation phase which formed the low terrace surface this was followed by dissection during the last ca 300 years and the development of the modern floodplain since ca 1840 ad various explanations for the changes during the holocene are considered the low terrace aggradation appears to be related to a major phase of mediaeval soil erosion

paleomagnetism and magnetic fabric of the deformed redbeds of the cap de la chevre formation brittany france abstract we present the results of a palaeomagnetism and magnetic fabric study in six sampling sites of the lower ordovician redbeds of the cap de la chevre formation crozon peninsula france measurement of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility ams shows that these beds are affected by a weak but significant tectonic strain during the hercynian folding of the armorican palaeozoic cover samples containing small elliptical reduction spots allowed us to check the control of strain on ams site mean ams data were then used to provide strain estimates at each site analysis of remanent magnetization through thermal and chemical stepwise demagnetization procedures allowed us to isolate three magnetic components component a defined in the lower unblocking temperature range is a recent overprinting which clusters around the present day dipole field direction components b and c defined respectively in the intermediate and higher unblocking temperature ranges appear to be pretectonic in age the fold test however is inconclusive for both because of the significant dispersion still remaining after the simple tilt correction assuming that at least a part of this dispersion is due to strain we have applied the strain removal technique using ams derived strains at each site this results in a clustering of component c from four sites allowing recovery of the primary ordovician paleomagnetic direction d 261 i 71 95 11 in contrast unstrained component b shows a small circle distribution containing the formation mean of unstrained component c the hypothesis that component b and c distributions arise from beds being tilted during a long term magnetization acquisition in the ordovician field is discussed taking into account the extensional geodynamic context during deposition of lower palaeozoic redbeds in brittany

paleomagnetic direction obtained by strain removal in the pyrenean permian redbeds at the col du somport france abstract in order to investigate the possibility and limitations of paleomagnetic works within strained regions a paleomagnetic study related with strain analysis has been conducted in the deformed pyrenean permian redbeds in the col du somport area paleomagnetic sampling together with strain estimates have been conducted in 6 sites through a fold the results obtained by measuring the orientation and axial ratios of elliptical reduction spots show that 1 the shale beds have undergone a penetrative strain 2 the sandy beds can be regarded as tectonically unstrained with reduction spots flattened in the bedding showing that they recorded the compaction it is shown that the total strain recorded in the slaty beds probably results from the superimposition of tectonic strain upon the compaction fabric the paleomagnetic study shows that the primary pretectonic magnetization is widely overprinted by a secondary syn or post tectonic magnetic component as both components appear to be carried by hematite pigment their separation using classical demagnetization procedures has been difficult a characteristic remanent magnetization chrm has however been determined when possible as the hardest component in demagnetization curves then the chrm direction distributions are represented in stereographic density plots although these chrm directions exhibit a clear tendency towards se declinations and shallow inclinations characteristic of permian paleomagnetic field direction for the iberian plate the tilt correction does not induce a clustering of these directions strain is inferred to be responsible for this situation assuming that both pretectonic magnetization directions and bedding planes closely follow the material plane and line strain response model of march 1 an attempt has been made to remove the effect of strain upon the remanent magnetization it is shown that when using a reconstructed tectonic strain tensor i e the total strain tensor as measured in the field corrected for an estimated compaction we obtain a significant clustering of chrm directions the computation of the relevant vgp gives a pole position 210 5 e 42 0 n compatible with the reference apwp for the iberian plate it is therefore inferred that the strain removal technique is a usable tool in order to obtain paleomagnetic results within such strained rocks

the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary in the tien shan karakoram region from s receiver functions evidence for continental subduction 1 significant s to p converted wave energy from the crust mantle and lithosphere asthenosphere boundaries the moho and the lab respectively has been observed in the tien shan and karakoram orogenic belts and used for the determination of the thickness of the crust and the mantle lithosphere the moho lies at depths of 45 65 km in the tien shan and adjacent regions and deepens to 70 km depth in pamir and karakoram the thickness of the lithosphere varies between 90 and 120 km underneath the tien shan and increases to a value of 160 km beneath the tarim basin to the south of the tarim basin the lower boundary of the asian lithosphere can be clearly followed to a depth of 270 km beneath central pamir and karakoram while the indian lithosphere is observed beneath the karakoram dipping from 130 km to 170 km towards the north the observations indicate a scenario of continental collision and subduction consistent with seismicity and the surface wave tomography results

mathematical removal of regional ductile strains in central brittany evidence for wrench tectonics abstract hercynian deformation in central brittany is responsible for folding of paleozoic and earlier sediments with concurrent development of cleavage essentially e w and vertical and stretching lineation essentially horizontal in the past the regional motion was inferred to be a n s shortening more recent studies emphasize e w transcurrent motions associated with major crustal faults values and orientations of ductile strain at 29 localities in central brittany show that the regional deformation is basically a horizontal plane strain with local three dimensional perturbations we first remove the perturbations rendering the problem two dimensional then a selected domain is divided into an array of finite elements parallel to strain trajectories using strain values extant at element centroids each element is unstrained independently of its neighbours resulting gaps and overlaps are minimized using a least squares technique which allows elements to translate and rotate rigidly thus we obtain the configuration of the domain in the undeformed state to within an unknown but constant rigid rotation the domain has undergone a heterogeneous dextral simple shear with vertical shearing plane striking n125 and horizontal shear direction a band of low strain running through guer is flanked by two zones of more intense strain the banding is approximately parallel to a major transcurrent fault in the area the south armorican shear zone

three dimensional velocity field of present day crustal motion of the tibetan plateau derived from gps measurements 1 using the measurements of 750 gps stations around the tibetan plateau for over 10 years since 1999 we derived a high resolution 3 d velocity field for the present day crustal movement of the plateau the horizontal velocity field relative to stable eurasia displays in details the crustal movement and tectonic deformation features of the india eurasia continental collision zone with thrust compression lateral extrusion and clockwise rotation the vertical velocity field reveals that the tibetan plateau is continuing to rise as a whole relative to its stable north neighbor however in some subregions uplift is insignificant or even negative the main features of the vertical crustal deformation of the plateau are the following a the himalayan range is still rising at a rate of 2 mm yr the uplift rate is 6 mm yr with respect to the south foot of the himalayan range b the middle eastern plateau has a typical uplift rate between 1 and 2 mm yr and some high mountain ranges in this area like the longmen shan and gongga shan have surprising uplift rates as large as 2 3mm yr c in the middle southern plateau there is a basin and endorheic subregion with a series of ns striking normal faults showing obvious sinking with the rates between 0 and 3 mm yr d the present day rising and sinking subregions generally correspond well to the cenozoic orogenic belts and basins respectively e at the southeastern corner of the plateau there is an apparent trend that the uplift rate is gradually decreasing from between 0 8 and 2 3 mm yr in the inner plateau to between 0 5 and 1 6 mm yr outside the plateau with the decrease of terrain height

rayleigh wave tomography of china and adjacent regions 1 this paper presents a tomographic study on the s wave velocity structure of china and adjacent regions group velocity dispersions of fundamental rayleigh waves along more than 4000 paths were determined with frequency time analysis the study region was divided into a 1 1 grid and velocities in between grid nodes were calculated by bilinear interpolation the occam s inversion scheme was adopted to invert for group velocity distributions this method is robust and allows us to use a fine grid in model parameterization and thus helps to restore a more realistic velocity pattern checkerboard tests were carried out and the lateral resolution was estimated to be 4 6 in china and its eastern continental shelves the resulting group velocity maps from 10 to 184 s showed good correlation with known geological and tectonic features the pure path dispersion curves at each node were inverted for shear wave velocity structures the three dimensional velocity model indicates thick lithospheres in the yangtze and tarim platforms and hot upper mantles in baikal and western mongolia coastal area and continental shelves of eastern china and indochina and south china sea regions the tibetan plateau has a very thick crust with a low velocity zone in its middle beneath the crust a north dipping high velocity zone mimicking a subducting plate reaches to 200 km in depth and reaches to the kunlun mountains northward in northern tibet a low velocity zone immediately below the moho extends eastward then turns southward along the eastern edge of the plateau until it connects to the vast low velocity area in indochina and the south china sea

present day crustal motion within the tibetan plateau inferred from gps measurements 1 using the measurements of 726 gps stations around the tibetan plateau we determine the rigid rotation of the entire plateau in a eurasia fixed reference frame which can be best described by an euler vector of 24 38 0 42 n 102 37 0 42 e 0 7096 0 0206 ma the rigid rotational component accommodates at least 50 of the northeastward thrust from india and dominates the eastward extrusion of the northern plateau after removing the rigid rotation to highlight the interior deformation within the plateau we find that the most remarkable interior deformation of the plateau is a glacier like flow zone which starts at somewhere between the middle and western plateau goes clockwise around the eastern himalayan syntaxis ehs and ends at the southeast corner of the plateau with a fan like front the deformation feature of the southern plateau especially the emergence of the flow zone could be attributed to an eastward escape of highly plastic upper crustal material driven by a lower crust viscous channel flow generated by lateral compression and gravitational buoyancy at the later developmental stage of the plateau the first order feature of crustal deformation of the northeastern plateau can be well explained by a three dimensional elastic half space dislocation model with rates of dislocation segments comparable to the ones from geological observations in the eastern plateau although gps data show no significant convergence between the eastern margin of the plateau and the sichuan basin a small but significant compressional strain rate component of 10 5 2 8 nstrain yr exists in a relatively narrow region around the eastern margin in addition a large part of the eastern plateau northeast of the ehs is not undergoing shortening along the northeastward convergence direction of the ehs but is stretching

the boundary between the indian and asian tectonic plates below tibet the fate of the colliding indian and asian tectonic plates below the tibetan high plateau may be visualized by in addition to seismic tomography mapping the deep seismic discontinuities like the crust mantle boundary moho the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary lab or the discontinuities at 410 and 660 km depth we herein present observations of seismic discontinuities with the p and s receiver function techniques beneath central and western tibet along two new profiles and discuss the results in connection with results from earlier profiles which did observe the lab the lab of the indian and asian plates is well imaged by several profiles and suggests a changing mode of india asia collision in the east west direction from eastern himalayan syntaxis to the western edge of the tarim basin the indian lithosphere is underthrusting tibet at an increasingly shallower angle and reaching progressively further to the north a particular lithospheric region was formed in northern and eastern tibet as a crush zone between the two colliding plates the existence of which is marked by high temperature low mantle seismic wavespeed correlating with late arriving signals from the 410 discontinuity poor sn propagation east and southeast oriented global positioning system displacements and strikingly larger seismic sks anisotropy

a sharp lithosphere asthenosphere boundary imaged beneath eastern north america although a rigid lithosphere about 100 km of crust and uppermost mantle moving over a weaker asthenosphere a few hundred kilometres of more deformable rock is a widely accepted aspect of plate tectonics the properties of the boundary between them are poorly understood when compressional waves p waves from an earthquake encounter an interface at an angle some of the energy is converted to shear waves or s waves these converted waves can be used to construct an image of the interface based on converted waves recorded in eastern north america the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary has been resolved as a sharp gradient that cannot be explained by thermal gradients alone indicating that the boundary is controlled by melt or high water content in the asthenosphere plate tectonic theory hinges on the concept of a relatively rigid lithosphere moving over a weaker asthenosphere yet the nature of the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary remains poorly understood the gradient in seismic velocity that occurs at this boundary is central to constraining the physical and chemical properties that create differences in mechanical strength between the two layers for example if the lithosphere is simply a thermal boundary layer that is more rigid owing to colder temperatures mantle flow models1 2 indicate that the velocity gradient at its base would occur over tens of kilometres in contrast if the asthenosphere is weak owing to volatile enrichment3 4 5 6 or the presence of partial melt7 the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary could occur over a much smaller depth range here we use converted seismic phases in eastern north america to image a very sharp seismic velocity gradient at the base of the lithosphere a 3 11 per cent drop in shear wave velocity over a depth range of 11 km or less at 90 110 km depth such a strong sharp boundary cannot be reconciled with a purely thermal gradient but could be explained by an asthenosphere that contains a few per cent partial melt7 or that is enriched in volatiles relative to the lithosphere3 4 5 6

compaction induced inclination shallowing of the post depositional remanent magnetization in a synthetic sediment summary a synthetic sediment comprised of kaolinite distilled water and either equidimensional or acicular magnetite was given a post depositional remanent magnetization pdrm by being stirred in a magnetic field this sediment was compacted under pressures which varied continuously from 0 to 0 14 mpa in a water tank consolidometer and to higher pressure steps 2 53 mpa in a standard soil consolidometer compaction took place in the same magnetic field in which the sample was given its pdrm the compaction caused shallowing of the sample s magnetic inclination this shallowing was found to be a function of the sample s initial magnetic inclination and the degree of sample compaction tan i 1 aav tan lo where ir is the remanent inclination after compaction av is the volume change i is the initial magnetic inclination and a is an empirically derived constant the data show a maximum inclination shallowing of 12 for an initial inclination of 54 in good agreement with the maximum inclination shallowing predicted by the above equation we propose an electrostatic mechanism to be the cause of the inclination shallowing in this model positively charged magnetite grains adhere to the surface of negatively charged clay grains with their long dimension parallel to the clay grain s surface as the clay grains become reorientated due to compaction the easy axes of magnetization are rotated away from the axis of compression alternating field demagnetization data reveal that our samples have shallower characteristic magnetizations than their post compaction nrms implying that the smaller higher coercivity grains are most affected by the compaction process these data support our model since a surface charge mechanism for inclination shallowing would predict that the smallest magnetic grains would be preferentially affected

tibetan plate overriding the asian plate in central and northern tibet at the southern boundary between india and tibet the indian tectonic plate subducts northwards beneath the tibetan plateau seismic imaging shows that at the northern boundary of tibet the asian plate is also subducting southwards beneath the plateau and the tibetan lithosphere is separate

seismic images of crust and upper mantle beneath tibet evidence for eurasian plate subduction seismic data from central tibet have been combined to image the subsurface structure and understand the evolution of the collision of india and eurasia the 410 and 660 kilometer mantle discontinuities are sharply defined implying a lack of a subducting slab beneath the plateau the discontinuities appear slightly deeper beneath northern tibet implying that the average temperature of the mantle above the transition zone is about 300 c hotter in the north than in the south there is a prominent south dipping converter in the uppermost mantle beneath northern tibet that might represent the top of the eurasian mantle lithosphere underthrusting the northern margin of the plateau

grain scale deformation and the fold test evaluation of syn folding remagnetization the paleomagnetic fold test examines for pre syn or post folding re magnetization generally passive limb rotation is used to restore folded units to their original position and the position of the fisherian maximum deter mines the relationship between folding and magnetization in a more complete analysis the reorientation of material lines in different fold models is used however the magnetic vec tor should not be considered a material line as it represents the sum of vectors in individual magnetic carriers and does not cross grain boundaries therefore the role of grain scale deformation mechanisms was examined using two end mem bers rigid body rotation spin and homogeneous strain from this study it is concluded that 1 the fisherian maximum will in general occur before complete unfolding 2 the sign of the inclination may change during unfolding and consequently cross over unfolding is not representati ve of syn folding remagnetization 3 statistical analysis will not necessarily produce significant results a number of recommendations are given which include stepwise unfol ding and unplunging should be carried out routinely local rather than regional fold tests should be performed both limbs and the hinge of a single folded layer should be exa mined in order to determine the active deformation mecha

implications of crustal property variations for models of tibetan plateau evolution shear coupled teleseismic p waves sampling the interior of the tibetan plateau provide evidence of systematic variations in crustal structure the crust thins by up to 20 km from south to north with a concomitant increase in poisson s ratio from normal values in the south to unusually high values in the north this suggests that the crust of the northern plateau is partially melted due to high temperatures these changes imply spatial and perhaps temporal variations in the way the elevation of the high plateau is created and maintained

lithospheric thickness of the chinese continent abstract we invert for the upper mantle temperatures of the chinese continent in the depth range of 70 240 km from a recent s velocity model the depth where temperatures intersect a mantle adiabat with a potential temperature of 1300 c is in close correspondence with the top of the seismic low velocity zone for most regions this correspondence implies that seismic lithosphere estimated from short time scale seismic information may be equivalent to the long time scale geodynamical lithosphere defining the 1300 c adiabat as coinciding with the lithospheric base we estimate the seismic thermal lithosphere thickness the estimated thickness shows obvious dependence on the tectonic settings beneath eastern china which mainly belongs to the circum pacific tectonic domain it has a thickness of 100 km and beneath the qinghai tibet plateau and south to the tarim craton which belong to the tethyan tectonic domain it has a thickness of 160 220 km the lithospheric thicknesses of the three large para platforms cratons range from 170 km for the western yangtze 140 km for tarim and 100 km for sino korean the three cratons may have been reshaped by phanerozoic tectonic activities and are thinner than most cratons in other continents

cenozoic tectonic evolution of the qaidam basin and its surrounding regions part 3 structural geology sedimentation and regional tectonic reconstruction the qaidam basin is the largest topographic depression inside the tibetan plateau because of its central position understanding the tectonic origin of the qaidam basin has important implications for unraveling the formation mechanism and growth history of the tibetan plateau in order to achieve this goal we analyzed regional seismic reflection profiles across the basin and a series of thickness distribution patterns of cenozoic strata at different time slices the first order structure of the basin is a broad cenozoic synclinorium which has an amplitude ranging from 16 km in the west to 48 in the west to 15 s 1 to 1 3 10 17 s 1 the eastward decrease in upper crustal shortening requires a progressive shift in crustal thickening mechanisms across qaidam basin from dominantly upper crustal shortening in the west to dominantly lower crustal shortening in the east although sedimentation began synchronously at 65 50 ma across the entire basin the initiation ages of the southern and northern basin bounding structures are significantly different deformation started at 65 50 ma in the north and at 29 24 ma in the south this information and the existing inference that the uplift of the eastern kunlun range south of qaidam basin began after 30 20 ma imply that the paleogene 65 24 ma qaidam and hoh xil basins on both sides of the eastern kunlun range may have been parts of a single topographic depression 500 km wide in the north south direction between the qilian shan and fenghuo shan thrust belts in the north and south the development of this large paleogene basin in central tibet and its subsequent destruction and partitioning by the neogene uplift of the eastern kunlun range requires a highly irregular sequence of deformation possibly controlled by preexist ing weakness in the tibetan lithosphere

converted waves reveal a thick and layered tectosphere beneath the kalahari super craton abstract thick and high velocity roots are generally observed beneath the archean cratons inside these high velocity keels velocity contrasts are detected neither by surface nor by body waves tomographies we present here evidences based on the s to p and p to s converted waves for the existence of an irregularly stratified and thick keel beneath the kalahari super craton to satisfy surface wave data and s to p conversions the velocity model should have beneath the moho a 160 km thick anisotropic structure with vertical slow axis and decreasing anisotropic parameters with depth such a structure may stem from the preferred orientation of olivine 100 axis in the horizontal plane under shearing deformation this structure together with the 100 km thick layer underlying it forms a 300 km thick continental root beneath the cratons inside this root the p and s velocities should be higher on average respectively by an amount of 6 and 4 than the ak135 velocity model beneath 300 350 km depth a low velocity zone is clearly detected that may be either the remainder of large magma reservoirs related to cratonic flood basalts or a melted silicate layer created by the transformation just above the 410 km deep discontinuity of wadsleyite assembly to olivine assembly

palaeomagnetism of the ordovician moulin de chateaupanne formation vendee western france summary a palaeomagnetic study of the moulin de chateaupanne formation reveals two characteristic components of magnetization the first one isolated by thermal treatment at intermediate temperatures is strongly resistant to chemical leaching its direction d 217 i 25 ag5 5 5 and the corresponding pole position lat 21 s long 320 e are typical of the hercynian overprints in the armorican massif the second component carried by fine grained haematite presents a steep downward direction d 228 i 81 ag5 6 pole position lat 34 n long 343 e already recognized in other ordovician rock units from the same area it is resistant to high temperature demagnetization treatment and is believed to be of chemical origin as assessed by a conglomerate test a mutual consistency test with the nearby thouars massif suggests that the tilt of the formation has a sedimentary origin and that the thouars massif has not suffered significant tilt during the hercynian orogenic events

statistical significance of the fold test in palaeomagnetism summary the significance of the change in direction dispersion on applying the fold test in palaeomagnetism is used as the criterion for deciding whether or not the fold test has statistical significance a set of tables is compiled which can be used for quick application of the test

crustal and upper mantle structure of southeast tibet from rayleigh wave tomography 1 we have applied the two plane wave inversion technique to fundamental mode rayleigh waves in southeast tibet phase velocity variations are obtained at 15 periods from 20 to 143 s and are used to construct three dimensional shear wave velocity structure a low velocity zone is imaged in the middle crust of southeast tibet in which velocity perturbation varies from 4 to 3 the slow area might be associated with high temperature and partial melt and can flow ductilely while the high velocity region could be relatively cold and mechanically strong enough to pass crustal strain implying that coherent lithospheric deformation is possible with the presence of complicated crustal flow strong negative anomalies in the shallow crust are imaged at 92 e correlating with the location of a north south rift zone a fast mantle lid to a depth of 120 km is present beneath most of the study area the lithosphere is significantly slower in the central part of the study area than in the west and east to the east of 96 e a subvertical high velocity zone is imaged at 120 240 km depths under the bangong nujiang suture bns which is more like the subduction of the asian lithosphere we interpret the high velocity anomalies to the south of the bns as the subducted indian lithosphere and those to the north as the asian lithosphere a vertical low velocity column is observed in the central part of the region from the lower crust to the midupper mantle which is probably in part responsible for the rift at 92 e the slow anomaly is likely associated with asthenosphere upwelling following the opening of a slab window that could have developed when the slab was torn apart vertically because of the significant change of subducting direction at the eastern syntaxis

tectonic history of the altyn tagh fault system in northern tibet inferred from cenozoic sedimentation the active left slip altyn tagh fault defines the northern edge of the tibetan plateau to determine its deformation history we conducted integrated research on cenozoic stratigraphic sections in the southern part of the tarim basin fission track ages of detrital apatites existing biostratigraphic data and magnetostratigraphic analysis were used to establish chronostratigraphy whereas composition of sandstone and coarse clastic sedimentary rocks was used to determine the unroofing history of the source region much of the detrital grains in our measured sections can be correlated with uplifted sides of major thrusts or transpressional faults implying a temporal link between sedimentation and deformation the results of our studies together with existing stratigraphic data from the qaidam basin and the hexi corridor suggest that crustal thickening in northern tibet began prior to 46 ma for the western kunlun shan thrust belt at ca 49 ma for the qimen tagh and north qaidam thrust systems bounding the north and south margins of the qaidam basin and prior to ca 33 ma for the nan shan thrust belt these ages suggest that deformation front reached northern tibet only 10 5 m y after the initial collision of india with asia at 65 55 ma because the aforementioned thrust systems are either termination structures or branching faults of the altyn tagh left slip system the altyn tagh fault must have been active since ca 49 ma the altyn tagh range between the tarim basin and the altyn tagh fault has been a long lived topographic high since at least the early oligocene or possibly late eocene this range has shed sediments into both the tarim and qaidam basins while being offset by the altyn tagh fault its continuous motion has made the range act as a sliding door which eventually closed the outlets of westward flowing drainages in the qaidam basin this process has caused large amounts of oligocene miocene sediments to be trapped in the qaidam basin the estimated total slip of 470 70 km and the initiation age of 49 ma yield an average slip rate along the altyn tagh fault of 9 2 mm yr remarkably similar to the rates determined by gps global positioning system surveys this result implies that geologic deformation rates are steady state over millions of years during continental collision

is the asian lithosphere underthrusting beneath northeastern tibetan plateau insights from seismic receiver functions abstract whether or not the asian lithosphere has underthrusted beneath the tibetan plateau is important for understanding the mechanisms of the plateau s growth using data from the permanent seismic stations in northeastern tibetan plateau we studied seismic structures of the lithosphere and upper mantle across the plateau s northeastern margin using p and s receiver functions the migrated p and s receiver function images reveal a thick crust and a diffuse lithosphere asthenosphere boundary lab beneath the tibetan plateau contrasting sharply with the relatively thin crust and clear sharp lab under the bounding asian blocks the well defined lab under the asian blocks tilts toward but does not extend significantly under the tibetan plateau this is inconsistent with the model of asian mantle lithosphere underthrusting beneath the tibet plateau instead our results indicate limited passive deformation of the bounding asian lithosphere as it encounters the growing tibetan plateau

imaging the colliding indian and asian lithospheric plates beneath tibet 1 a high resolution image of the base of the lithosphere from s to p converted seismic waves revealed the collision architecture of the indian and asian continental plates beneath the tibetan plateau the base of the indian lithosphere dips northward from a depth of 160 km beneath the himalayas to a depth of 220 km just south of the bangong suture the base of the asian lithosphere is nearly horizontal at the depth of 160 180 km from central to northern tibet there is a vertical gap of about 50 km between indian and asian lithospheres our observation of a well defined thick lithosphere throughout the entire plateau is not consistent with models of wholesale convective instability of a thickened mantle lithosphere which would predict a very thin asian lithosphere the hypothesized sequential southward subduction of tibetan and asian continental lithospheres leading to the growth of the tibetan plateau if correct cannot be occurring below 180 km depth our results along with available geological and geophysical data strongly support that the plateau is predominantly formed by a relatively coherent north dipping subducted indian continental lithosphere in the south which presently can be traced to the middle of the plateau and a south dipping subducted asian lithosphere in the north at a shallower depth

continuous deformation of the tibetan plateau from global positioning system data global positioning system velocities from 553 control points within the tibetan plateau and on its margins show that the present day tectonics in the plateau is best described as deformation of a continuous medium at least when averaged over distances of 100 km deformation occurs throughout the plateau interior by ese wnw extension and slightly slower nne ssw shortening relative to eurasia material within the plateau interior moves roughly eastward with speeds that increase toward the east and then flows southward around the eastern end of the himalaya crustal thickening on the northeast ern and eastern margins of the plateau occurs over a zone 400 km wide and cannot be the result of elastic strain on a single major thrust fault shortening there accommodates much of india s penetration into eurasia a description in terms of movements of rigid blocks with elastic strain associated with slip on faults between them cannot match the velocity field

oblique stepwise rise and growth of the tibet plateau two end member models of how the high elevations in tibet formed are i continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow of the crust and mantle of the entire plateau and ii time dependent localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks recent studies of cenozoic deformation magmatism and seismic structure lend support to the latter since india collided with asia 55 million years ago the rise of the high tibetan plateau likely occurred in three main steps by successive growth and uplift of 300 to 500 kilometer wide crustal thrust wedges the crust thickened while the mantle decoupled beneath gently dipping shear zones did not sediment infilling bathtub like of dammed intermontane basins formed flat high plains at each step the existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the himalayas subduction was oblique and accompanied by extrusion along the left lateral strike slip faults that slice tibet s east side these mechanisms akin to plate tectonics hidden by thickening crust with slip partitioning account for the dominant growth of the tibet plateau toward the east and northeast

the s receiver functions synthetics and data example summary recently the s receiver function method has been successfully developed to identify upper mantle interfaces s receiver functions have the advantage of being free of s wave multiple reflections and can be more suitable than p receiver functions for studying mantle lithosphere however because of specific ray geometry and interference of diverse phases the s receiver function method has some technical difficulties and limitations we use synthetic seismograms to demonstrate the feasibility and limitations of s receiver functions for studying mantle structures full wavefield seismograms were calculated using the reflectivity method and processed to generate synthetic s receiver functions for s sks and scs waves results show that s receiver functions can be obtained from waveforms of s sks and scs waves the synthetic s receiver functions for these incident waves show s to p converted phases at all discontinuities in the crust and upper mantle useful ranges of epicentral distances for calculation of s receiver functions are 55 85 for s 85 for sks and 50 75 for scs waves we apply both the s and p receiver function methods to data recorded at broadband station ykw3 in northwest canada the study shows that there is significant agreement among different receiver function methods and demonstrates the usefulness of s receiver functions for imaging the mantle lithosphere

experimental and numerical modeling of irm rotation in deformed synthetic samples abstract the effect of strain upon isothermal remanent magnetization irm carried by hematite particles embedded in a plasticine matrix has been investigated magnetized artificial hand samples were deformed by simple coaxial shortening after deformation the hand samples were cut into 8 15 specimens and each specimen s irm measured hence a mean irm direction was obtained for each shortening step the main results are 1 when the initial direction of irm is parallel to the shortening axis 3 the hand sample mean irm stays parallel to 3 during deformation however individual magnetization directions are deflected towards the flattening plane and thus the specimen directions are scattered by strain this is accompanied by a significant decrease of magnetization intensity 2 in contrast when the initial direction of irm is perpendicular to 3 the shortening results in a clustering of specimen magnetization directions the mean direction being unchanged this is accompanied by a slight increase of magnetization intensity 3 in all other cases where initial irm direction makes an intermediate angle with shortening direction deformation induces a deviation of each specimen irm toward the flattening plane this results in an overall deflection of hand sample mean irm the amount of rotation increases with strain intensity changes of grouping and intensity depend on the initial angle between irm and 3 defining a continuum in behavior between irm directions being either parallel to 3 or perpendicular to 3 finally it is shown that all the experimental changes in irm due to deformation direction grouping intensity can be modeled by a passive marker rotation of hematite planar particles

effect of progressive deformation on remanent magnetization of permian redbeds from the alpes maritimes france abstract the relationships among the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility the finite strain and the characteristic remanent magnetization chrm have been investigated in deformed red sediments from the alpes maritimes in southeast france the magnetic properties of these rocks are due to hematite the finite strain is known from field studies of the shapes and orientations of green reduction spots and from optical microscopy and x ray texture goniometry studies of chlorite and illite the strain data permit a classification of the magnetic results according to four main stages of progressive deformation in the compaction stage magnetic anisotropy is flattened in the bedding due to compactional loading the chrm directions approximate to a fisherian distribution about a mean value close to the known permian direction for the region as deformation proceeds pencil structure first develops and the anisotropy is characterized by a prolate pattern with maximum axis parallel to the subhorizontal azimuth of the pencil structure and fold axes with increasing deformation the magnetic susceptibility ellipsoid becomes oblate and finally triaxial at these stages of high deformation the anisotropy patterns show that the hematite grain orientations are strongly influenced by the cleavage the remanence directions in deformed rocks do not correspond to a fisher distribution and eventually deviate strongly from permian directions these results show that paleomagnetic vectors are affected by the distortional strains which accomodate shape change in the rock simple tilt correction without compensation for the strain would yield incorrect paleopole positions an attempt has been made to compensate for the effects of deformation by regarding the remanent vector as a passive marker march 1932 equations for strain removal were applied to the remanence in two ways 1 a using strain data directly obtained in the field for each site and 2 b by converting the magnetic susceptibility anisotropy of each sample to a corresponding finite strain value correcting for the finite strain by both methods improves the within site grouping of paleomagnetic vectors in strongly deformed rocks strain removal assuming the march model results in overcorrection of the remanent magnetization data in low strain regions distortion may produce mechanical rotation of the hematite particles but recrystallization may alter the deformation mechanism in regions of high strain the limits of applicability of the passive marker treatment could not be tested adequately in the deformed red sediments of the alpes maritimes

a paleomagnetic study of mesozoic sediments from the junggar and turfan basins northwestern china mesozoic sedimentary rocks have been collected from the karamay area northwestern junggar block and in the turfan basin northeastern tarim block for a paleomagnetic study with the aim of testing the rigid nature of these blocks and to better constrain their paleogeographic relationships within central asia prior to the collision with india the results from the karamay area are disappointing lower cretaceous grey sandstones having apparently been recently remagnetized this remagnetization is carried by magnetite and yields highly clustered normal polarity directions both a medium mtc and a high htc unblocking temperature component are isolated from flat lying or weakly tilted jurassic red sandstones the mtc could be carried by maghemite and the htc is carried by hematite the two components are statistically identical and seem to correspond to an ancient magnetization however there is no fold test and comparison with previous data from junggar and the reference apwp of siberia does not allow us to decide between a middle jurassic primary magnetization and an upper jurassic or cretaceous remagnetization stronger constraints are obtained from upper jurassic to lower eocene fine grained red sandstones from anticlines that have been thrust southwards in the turfan area of south tien shan after the elimination of a recent overprint that is probably related to weathering a high coercivity high unblocking temperature component carried essentially by hematite is isolated all directions from the jurassic to the lower eocene which yield positive fold and reversal tests are statistically indistinguishable this is compatible with a primary origin for these magnetizations similar to what has previously been found in junggar tarim and western tibet the corresponding turfan pole is not statistically distinct from that of tarim for the same period in accordance with the notion of a large quasi rigid tarim block remaining attached to eurasia in a rather constant position and at a constant latitude throughout the second half of the mesozoic this new datum can therefore be included to derive a new mean pole for the tarim that is valid for the period from the middle jurassic to the end of the cretaceous 68 4 n 224 5 e a95 3 1

passive rotation of hematite during deformation a comparison of simulated and natural redbeds fabrics abstract a simulation model is used to generate pole figures assuming strain induced passive rotation of hematite crystals comparison of simulated and natural hematite fabrics allows us to distinguish between dominant passive rotation and other grain scale deformation mechanisms two natural examples are discussed redbeds from the french maritime alps and pyrenean redbeds fabrics indicate that passive rotation is the dominant reorientation mechanism of primary hematite grains during progressive deformation of redbeds

the effect of magnetic anisotropy on paleomagnetic directions in high grade metamorphic rocks from the juiz de fora complex se brazil the juiz de fora complex is mainly composed of granulites and granodioritic migmatite gneisses and is a cratonic basement of the ribeira fold belt which was formed during the last stage of brasiliano orogeny samples widely distributed over the studied region se brazil rio de janeiro state were collected for paleomagnetic and magnetic anisotropy determinations after measurement of anisotropy of low field magnetic susceptibility ams the same specimens were submitted to both alternating field for anisotropy of remanent magnetization arm determinations and thermal demagnetization for paleomagnetic analyses demagnetization processes allowed isolating an eastern steep positive inclination characteristic remanent magnetization chrm direction from the rocks the studied specimens are strongly heterogeneous at sample scale regarding the amount of magnetic minerals even for specimens from the same core rock magnetism indicates that there is a complex mixture of magnetic minerals with both low and high coercivity which are associated with coarse grained titano magnetite and either fine grained titano magnetite or titanohematite grains respectively these magnetic minerals are responsible for both remanent direction and magnetic anisotropies even though for some specimens paramagnetic minerals are the carriers of ams fabric the chrm direction found for the rocks should represent the cooling phase of the brasiliano event in the area and it was acquired after the magnetic fabric was formed the ams and arm fabrics are coaxial and tectonic in origin and compare favorably with the mesoscopic scale fabrics in the adjacent areas however arm measurements have reached only low coercivity grains and it could be determined in few specimens then only an estimate of arm effect on chrms correction is shown the rocks are strongly magnetically anisotropic 50 and foliated the paleomagnetic directions from each specimen within a site tend to approach its ams or arm foliation kmax kint or armmax armmin plane these directions were corrected specimen by specimen from the sites taking into account the pole of ams or arm foliation kmin or armmin and the value of the degree of anisotropy p results show that even for specimens with high p the angular difference between corrected and uncorrected magnetization direction may be insignificant if the geomagnetic field at the time of acquired magnetization was approximately parallel to the magnetic foliation of the specimens our data set suggests that ams is a powerful tool to correct the chrm deviation from paleofields in rocks with complex magnetic mineralogy such as those from the juiz de fora complex

a paleomagnetic study of tectonically deformed red beds of the lower glarus nappe complex eastern switzerland a paleomagnetic study at 15 sites 315 samples in permo triassic red beds of the helvetic nappes of eastern switzerland isolated stable characteristic and secondary remanent directions thermal demagnetization and isothermal remanent magnetization experiments suggest pigmentary hematite carries the characteristic direction secondary directions are scattered but may have been acquired during the alpine deformation in the oligocene and miocene the characteristic directions also show large between site scatter anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility indicates that the hematite grains are flattened within the slaty cleavage and that there is a north south lineation this anisotropy pattern implies that the magnetic grains were realigned by the alpine deformation it is not possible to explain the characteristic remanent magnetization deviations on a site by site basis but the site mean directions are streaked along a great circle the down dip direction of which is approximately parallel to the regional fold axes 60 20 this spread could be explained by a penetrative simple shear deformation associated with the nappe internal deformation

cenozoic tectonic evolution of asia a preliminary synthesis abstract asia has been a major testing ground for various competing models of continental deformation due to its relatively well understood plate boundary conditions in the cenozoic exceptional exposure of active structures and strain distribution and widespread syn collisional igneous activity as a proxy for the thermal state of the mantle and crust two cenozoic orogens dominate the continent the himalayan tibetan orogen in the east induced by the india asia collision and the turkish iranian caucasus orogen in the west induced by the arabia asia collision the development of the two orogens was accomplished by shortening in the early stage followed by strike slip faulting and extension in the late stage in the himalayan tibetan orogen shortening across two discrete thrust belts at 55 30 ma in southern and northern tibet created a large intracontinental basin the paleo qaidam basin in between subsequent crustal thickening and a possible thermal event in the mantle e g convective removal of central tibetan mantle lithosphere may have raised the elevation of this early intra plateau basin up to 2 3 km to its current height collision between india and asia also caused lateral extrusion of southeast asia between 32 ma and 17 ma the latest stage of the india asia collision was expressed by north trending rifting and the development of trench facing v shaped conjugate strike slip faults in central mongolia central tibet eastern afghanistan and southeast asia in the turkish iranian caucasus orogen early crustal thickening in the orogenic interior began at or prior to 30 20 ma this style of deformation was replaced by strike slip faulting at 15 5 ma associated with further northward penetration of arabia into asia westward extrusion of the anatolia turkey block and rapid extension across the sea of crete and sea of aegean the late stage extension in both orogens was locally related to extensional core complex development the continental margin extension of east asia was developed in two stages initially in a widely distributed zone that has an east west width of 500 800 km during 65 35 ma which was followed by localized extension and opening of back arc basins associated with the development of spreading centers at 32 17 ma e g japan sea or east korea sea bohai bay and south china sea opening of the back arc basins could be induced by 1 rapid eastward migration of the western pacific trench system or 2 oblique subduction of pacific plate beneath asia that had produced a series of en echelon right slip primary shear zones linking with back arc spreading centers oriented obliquely to the strike of the nearby trench since 15 ma the eastern margin of asia became contractional in the east west direction as indicated by the collapse of back arc basins in the western pacific and the development of fold thrust belts along the eastern continental margin coeval with the contraction is widespread east west extension in siberia north china and the tibetan plateau the above observations can be explained by a change in boundary condition along the eastern margin of asia that allowed the thickened asian continent to spread eastward causing east west extension in its trailing edge and east west compression in its leading edge in west asia continental margin extension started at about 25 20 ma in the aegean and cretan regions which was associated with a rapid southward retreat of the hellenic arc the complex evolution of cenozoic deformation in asia may be explained by a combined effect of temporal changes in plate boundary conditions thermal evolution of the upper mantle perturbed by collisional tectonics and the built up of gravitational energy through crustal thickening and thermal heating although the past research in asia has treated the india asia and arabia asia convergence as separate collisional processes their interaction may have controlled the far field cenozoic deformation in asia the most pronounced result of this interaction is the creation of a northeast trending 300 400 km wide and 1500 km long zone of northwest striking right slip faults which extends from the zagros thrust belt in the south to western mongolia in the north and links with the active tian shan and altai shan intracontinental orogens cenozoic deformation and coeval igneous activity spatially overlap with one another in the himalayan tibetan and turkish iranian caucasus orogens a large cenozoic magmatic gap exists between tibet in the south and mongolia in the north where cenozoic deformation has not been associated with any coeval igneous activity finally cenozoic igneous activity is always associated with jurassic cretaceous magmatic arcs suggesting a causal relationship between the early arc magmatism and later syn collisional magmatism

strain magnetic fabric and paleomagnetism of the deformed red beds of the pont rean formation brittany france a joint study of strain anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility ams and paleomagnetism has been conducted in the deformed red beds of the ordovician pont rean formation brittany france analysis of results from 13 sampling sites shows that homogeneous strain estimated from the shape of elliptical reduction spots in each site controls the development of a magnetic fabric during the hercynian folding of this formation the good correlation between strain and ams tensors is interpreted as mainly arising from a strain induced progressive rotation of planar hematite that tends to align within cleavage plane this rotation of magnetic carriers in turn induces a rotation of net measurable pretectonic remanent magnetization toward cleavage because of the high angle between the initially subvertical ordovician remanent magnetization and the regionally subhorizontal shortening direction this deviation of the pretectonic magnetization is achieved without any scattering but with a probable clustering effect upon within site initial dispersions for the same reason the overall distribution of mean site pretectonic magnetization vectors is clustered at the in situ deformed state this results in an anomalous behavior of the classical fold test that could erroneously lead to assignment of a syntectonic to post tectonic age to the magnetizations finally the strain removal technique based upon the passive behavior hypothesis is applied to the deviated vectors it allows recovery of the initial direction of these pretectonic ordovician magnetizations d 235 i 75 95 6 5

strain removal applied to paleomagnetic directions in an orogenic belt the permian red slates of the alpes maritimes france abstract detailed investigations of relationships between strain and directions of characteristic remanent magnetization chrm have been conducted on the permian red series of the alpes maritimes france the analysis of the results obtained by structural and paleomagnetic studies on 14 sites leads to the following observations in most sites the mean direction of the strain shortening axis is close to the expected permian paleomagnetic direction in this case we observe a large scatter of the chrm directions within each site which is interpreted as an increase of an initial dispersion due to strain moreover this dispersion more or less increases with strain intensity in other cases where the angle between the shortening axis and the paleomagnetic direction is high the whole population is deflected towards the cleavage xy plane these observations lead us to assume a material line like behaviour of the chrm vectors and consequently an attempt has been made to recalculate these directions by strain removal these calculations give positive results at two levels 1 a statistically significant improvement in the clustering of the within site distributions and 2 after tilt correction using unstrained bedding planes a significant improvement in the clustering of the between site distribution the formation mean direction after strain removal is in good agreement with known permian results for stable europe

magnetite dissolution and neocrystallization during cleavage formation paleomagnetic study of the martinsburg formation lehigh gap pennsylvania paleomagnetic study of the shale to slate transition in the ordovician martinsburg formation at lehigh gap pennsylvania reveals that the remanence of the relatively undeformed shales predates cleavage formation and that the slates were remagnetized during cleavage development the shales display two components of remanence component 1 c1 was the only magnetization direction in the majority of the shales and the first removed component in 10 shale specimens component 2 c2 is observed as a single component remanence with a low 300 400 c unblocking temperature range in samples from one shale station and as a second removed component in 10 shale specimens the mean directions are declination inclination 347 04 346 47 in situ tilt corrected for c1 and 80 63 135 40 for c2 the pencil slates and well cleaved slates both display single component remanences the mean directions are 198 12 201 26 for the pencil slates and 199 24 225 54 for the well cleaved slates using the relationship between cleavage development and remagnetization in the slates the timing of cleavage development and folding and the regional geology we can constrain the relative ages of the remanences as follows 1 the shale c1 direction is most likely prefolding and represents a primary upper ordovician direction 2 the slate directions are younger in age than the shale directions and are probably of permo carboniferous alleghenian age these results show that remagnetization occurred during development of slaty cleavage in these rocks we interpret the mechanism for this remagnetization to have been strain induced dissolution and neocrystallization of magnetite the additional difference in the characteristic directions of the pencil slates and well cleaved slates may be attributed to strain reorientation of the pencil slate remanence after new growth of magnetite the unknown temporal relationship between dissolution and neocrystallization and strain precludes any quantitative attempt to correct remanence for strain in these samples our study shows that paleomagnetic studies of deformed sediments must consider the possibility of dissolution and neocrystallization of remanence carriers in addition to strain induced rotation

ordovician palaeogeography with new palaeomagnetic data from the montagne noire southern france a joint palaeomagnetic and ar 40 ar 39 study has been performed on two olistolithic blocks from the cabrieres wildflysch in the montagne noire region of the massif central in france there andesitic volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks of llanvirn early caradoc age ca 470 458 ma occur despite extensive secondary alteration destruction of the dominant magnetic mineral phase and ar 40 ar 39 whole rock experiments that demonstrate that the volcanic rocks suffered significant argon loss a positive fold test and the presence of dual polarities suggest that a primary ordovician magnetisation has mostly survived this is one of the few documented cases where the argon system was substantially reset whilst a subordinate set of small relatively unaltered magnetite grains probably hosted in silicates still carry the original in this case ordovician remanence the new data show that the montagne noire region was located at high southerly latitudes 68degrees 19 15 during the mid ordovician this latitude represents the location for nw gondwana of which the massif central was a part palaeomagnetic data from all the central european massifs and terranes demonstrate a close link to the gondwana margin during the lower and middle ordovician

paleoremanence dispersal across a transpressed archean terrain deflection by anisotropy or by late compression the quetico belt is an archean metasedimentary terrain sandwiched between greenstone subprovinces a single regional schistosity is subparallel to magnetic foliation defined by anisotropy of low field magnetic susceptibility ams and anisotropy of anhysteretic remanence aarm aligned micas are the primary cause of ams aligned pyrrhotite is the sole cause of aarm each magnetic subfabric is due to minerals that grew in overlapping intervals in the strain history their slight obliquity may be due to crystallization during noncoaxial strain magnetic fabric ellipsoids suggest varying severity of flattening very strong flattening on the northern boundary less severe on the southern boundary and least severe in the interior the interior and the southern boundary of the belt stretched horizontally and the shortening direction varies gradually from ns in the north to nnw in the south the paleomagnetic record carried by pyrrhotite shows characteristic remanences dispersed around a great circle subparallel to the regional schistosity and magnetic foliations late stress effects rotated paleoremanences into this pattern we discount deflection of the paleofield by anisotropy the pattern of dispersal indicates uniaxial oblate flattening of the region with nnw sse shortening late in the metamorphic cooling history 300 c this postdates schistosity ams and aarm fabrics but it is controlled by the same kinematic pattern

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

identification of ordovician block tilting in the hercynian fold belt of central brittany france field evidence and computer models abstract the significance of the brioverian lower ordovician unconformity in central brittany has been discussed by many authors a new interpretation in terms of extensional tectonics is presented based on structural sedimentological and stratigraphical data however because sedimentary formations have been strongly folded by hercynian deformation extensional structures are obscured and difficult to recognize to identify the normal faults the geological map is compared with computer models of the folded tilted blocks it is shown that major normal faults had a mean n70 trend dipping toward the se with an almost regular spacing of 7 8 km

remanence rotation due to rock strain during folding and the stepwise application of the fold test numerical modeling was conducted to determine the effects of simple models of folding strain on prefolding fisherian distributions of magnetization i found that the constant volume simple shear associated with flexural slip flexural flow folding can rotate a prefolding magnetization to have a maximum precision parameter k value at partial unfolding and thus appear to be synfolding in age if the magnetization is treated as a passive line marker this behavior only occurs for steep initial magnetizations the initial homogeneity of the fisherian precision parameters from each limb is degraded by this type of deformation and may be used to detect a strain modified remanence if the magnetization is carried by rigid mechanically active ellipsoidal or spherical particles a maximum k value at partial unfolding will occur for any initial inclination with the special case that rigid spheres will be rotated to cause a maximum k value at 50 unfolding for any initial inclination homogeneity of limb precisions is not affected in this case a discontinuous model of strain during folding in which pressure solution removes material at an axial planar spaced cleavage and causes limb dips steeper than bedding dips could also produce a maximum k value at partial unfolding strain and remanence studies of flexural slip folding in the allentown formation dolomite and the bloomsburg formation red sandstones and mudstones suggest that 1 the rigid grain model may be a more realistic model of magnetic particle behavior during shear strain and 2 about one quarter to one third of the theoretically predicted simple shear strain occurs in these rocks this amount of strain cannot explain the synfolding behavior observed in the allentown formation but could explain the maximum k values at 80 90 unfolding seen in the bloomsburg formation and perhaps other appalachian clastic rocks

early cenozoic faulting of the northern tibetan plateau margin from apatite u th he ages models to explain the distributed nature of continental deformation predict the propagation of strain and high topography away from the plate boundary yet a growing body of evidence in the tibetan orogen suggests that deformation occurred at the far northern extent of the modern plateau early in the orogen s history and thus our current mechanical understanding of orogenic plateau development is incomplete new apatite u th he ages from four elevation transects document periods of rapid exhumation related to erosion pulses in hanging wall rocks of major thrust structures accelerated erosion is used as a proxy of fault timing and is interpreted in a larger context of structural data and sediment accumulation in adjacent foreland basins helium results are synthesized with published geologic thermochronometric and sedimentologic data from which a growing picture of regional compressional deformation in middle to late eocene time in northern tibet emerges we relate the early cenozoic period of deformation to the initiation of collision between india and eurasia despite the fact that the plate boundary was located 3000 km to the south regardless of whether or not high topography was built simultaneously as a result of this deformation early cenozoic strain signifies that the modern limit of the orogen has been relatively stationary since continental collision began and that deformation has not significantly propagated farther away from the plate boundary in time

effects of tectonic deformation on the remanent magnetization of rocks paleomagnetic investigations have usually been impossible in deformed rocks because of the effects of distortion on the remanent magnetization vector deformation produces a magnetic anisotropy in rocks which can deflect the remanence away from the minimum susceptibility axis however the assumption that the intersection points of great circles joining these two directions represent an improved estimate of the undisturbed remanence is invalid because the amount of the deflection of each remanence is not really known anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility ams provides a quantitative basis for strain determination the principal axes of the magnetic anisotropy ellipsoid have the same directions as those of the strain ellipsoid a linear relationship between the normalized principal susceptibility differences and the logarithmic strains has been found in several rock types if the correlation method used is valid ams observations can be used to establish the magnitudes and directions of the principal strains strain modifies bedding planes and realigns the grains that carry magnetic remanence compensation for deformation requires application of a modified bedding tilt correction and correction of the remanent vector for distortional strain the effects of strain on bedding can be corrected using passive marker theory attempts to compensate for distortional strain by treating the remanent vector as a passive marker have proved inconclusive during deformation linear and planar elements deflect away from the axis of maximum shortening the passive marker correction shifts the remanent vectors toward the local shortening axis for the site and reduces the directional scatter tests of the passive marker method in strongly deformed rocks resulted in a remanence distribution dominated by the shortening axis directions the passive marker model becomes inapplicable when the deformation results in recrystallization of the rock matrix

the growth of northeastern tibet and its relevance to large scale continental geodynamics a review of recent studies recent studies of the northeastern part of the tibetan plateau have called attention to two emerging views of how the tibetan plateau has grown first deformation in northern tibet began essentially at the time of collision with india not 10 20 myr later as might be expected if the locus of activity migrated northward as india penetrated the rest of eurasia thus the north south dimensions of the tibetan plateau were set mainly by differences in lithospheric strength with strong lithosphere beneath india and the tarim and qaidam basins steadily encroaching on one another as the region between them the present day tibetan plateau deformed and its north south dimension became narrower second abundant evidence calls for acceleration of deformation including the formation of new faults in northeastern tibet since 15 ma and a less precisely dated change in orientation of crustal shortening since 20 ma this reorientation of crustal shortening and roughly concurrent outward growth of high terrain which swings from nne ssw in northern tibet to more ne sw and even ene wsw in the easternmost part of northeastern tibet are likely to be in part a consequence of crustal thickening within the high tibetan plateau reaching a limit and the locus of continued shortening then migrating to the northeastern and eastern flanks these changes in rates and orientation also could result from removal of some or all mantle lithosphere and increased gravitational potential energy per unit area and from a weakening of crustal material so that it could flow in response to pressure gradients set by evolving differences in elevation

seismic evidence for the north china plate underthrusting beneath northeastern tibet and its implications for plateau growth abstract lithospheric deformation of the tibetan plateau is caused by subduction of the indian northward and asian southward plates the effects of this interaction on inner reaches of the asian continent between the tibetan plateau and the north china craton ncc for example remain uncertain due to poor geophysical data coverage in northeastern tibet ne tibet we provide here detailed knowledge of the lithospheric structure beneath ne tibet as determined from a dense broadband seismic profile traversing ne tibet to the westernmost ncc receiver function imaging reveals several significant features including a north dipping intracrustal converter nc moho offset overlap beneath major fault zones and a low velocity layer lvl in the middle lower crust the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary lab is clearly defined and appears as a south dipping interface that runs continuously from the alxa interior to the qilian orogen interpretation of these observations combined with other seismic evidence implies that the ncc lithospheric mantle has been persistently underthrust beneath the qilian orogen this process forms the thick skinned crustal accretionary wedges which develop above a middle lower intracrustal decollement our results provide further deep geophysical constraints on the cenozoic post collisional evolution of the convergent boundary between ne tibet and the ncc and help clarify the mechanism of plateau growth in this boundary area

underplating in the himalaya tibet collision zone revealed by the hi climb experiment we studied the formation of the himalayan mountain range and the tibetan plateau by investigating their lithospheric structure using an 800 kilometer long densely spaced seismic array we have constructed an image of the crust and upper mantle beneath the himalayas and the southern tibetan plateau the image reveals in a continuous fashion the main himalayan thrust fault as it extends from a shallow depth under nepal to the mid crust under southern tibet indian crust can be traced to 31 n the crust mantle interface beneath tibet is anisotropic indicating shearing during its formation the dipping mantle fabric suggests that the indian mantle is subducting in a diffuse fashion along several evolving subparallel structures

present day crustal vertical movement inferred from precise leveling data in eastern margin of tibetan plateau abstract we collect precise leveling data observed in the period of 1970 to 2012 around the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau and process the data to acquire present day crustal vertical velocity field vertical rates of 9 gps sites are employed as a priori constraints to define the reference frame the velocity field shows that most of the regions in the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau are undergoing uplift the gongga shan and west qinling are uplifting at maximum rates of 5 8 1 0 mm a and 6 0 1 3 mm a respectively a 2 d buried dislocation model is used to infer normal or reverse dip slip rates the result indicates that the reverse slip rate along the longmen shan fault is 4 2 0 5 mm a followed by the daliangshan and longriba faults with the rates of 3 7 0 5 mm a and 2 8 0 3 mm a respectively thezemuhe and northern section of the xiaojiang fault have the normal slip rates of 2 3 1 0 mm a and 2 9 0 4 mm a respectively combining vertical velocity field with gps derived horizontal velocity field we investigate the characteristics of crustal movement and dynamic mechanism the 3d velocity field indicates that the helan shan is uplifting and the yinchuan graben is subsiding the 3d crustal movement of the liupan shan region is segmented with the area in the vicinity of the northern liupan shan fault uplifting and the area in the vicinity of southern liupan shan fault subsiding respectively the subsidence of the central and southern sichuan yunnan terrain is caused by the near east west extension the budget of horizontal material influx suggests that movements of the upper and lower crust are rather different in most of the region excessive material influx into the lower crust upper mantle underneath most of the sub blocks seems required to maintain the uplift rates inferred from leveling providing evidence for the existence of lower crustal flow in this region

the early palaeozoic break up of northern gondwana new palaeomagnetic and geochronological data from the saxothuringian basin germany early palaeozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks from the saxothuringian basin franconian forest northern bavaria have been subjected to detailed radiometric and palaeomagnetic studies in order to determine the tectonic environment and geographic setting in which they were deposited two hand samples were collected from the as yet undated pyroclastic flow deposits for 207pb 206pb age dating radiometric results for these samples obtained by the single zircon evaporation technique are identical within error and the mean age of all measured grains is 478 2 1 8 ma n 11 this age is considered to be primary and firmly constrains the eruption of the ignimbrites and formation of the subaqueous pyroclastic flows as having occurred in early ordovician arenig times palaeomagnetic studies were carried out on these early ordovician volcanic rocks and also on the biostratigraphically dated late ordovician ashgillian dobra sandstones the volcanic rocks carry up to three directions of magnetisation the poorly defined low and intermediate unblocking temperature directions are thought to represent secondary overprint directions of post ordovician age the high temperature component however identified at temperatures of up to 580 c is of mixed polarity and passes the fold test with 99 confidence the overall mean direction after bedding correction is 189 76 95 11 6 k 44 7 25 samples five sites and is considered to be primary and early ordovician in origin it yields a palaeo south pole at 24 n and 007 e which translates into palaeolatitudes of 63 21 7 17 3 s for the saxothuringian terrane samples from the late ordovician dobra sandstone are generally very weakly magnetised a high temperature d component of magnetisation can be identified in some samples and yields a mean direction of 030 58 95 18 5 k 25 7 15 samples four sites after bedding correction the arenig palaeomagnetic results indicate high palaeolatitudes but separation from northern gondwana this is in basic agreement with data from elsewhere in the armorican terrane assemblage all of which suggest high southerly palaeolatitudes in the early ordovician the geochemical signatures of these rocks indicate emplacement in an extensional environment these new data therefore are interpreted as marking the onset of rifting of saxothuringia from the north african margin of gondwana and the start of the relative northward migration of the saxothuringian terrane although the late ordovician palaeomagnetic results presented here are only poorly constrained they suggest an intermediate palaeolatitude for saxothuringia in ashgillian times in good agreement with late ordovician palaeomagnetic data from the barrandian

strain reorientation of hematite and its bearing upon remanent magnetization using a computer based nume rical model we suggest that passive reorientation of hematite planar particles induced by strain perturb significantly the remanent magnetization carried by the hematite the evolution of its direction and dispersion in a progressively incre asing strain can be correlated with the evolution of passive 1ines in real rocks the amount of reorientation can be appro ched by measuring one of the thr ee follo wing tensors strain tensor orientation tensor of some hematite cristallographic axes or magnetic susceptibility tensor from examples taken in the maritime alps and in brittany we emphasize the possible correlations between these tensors orien tation of principal axes and axial ratios fina1ly we use our best estimate of strain to correct the paleomagnetic results by the strain removal technique we have already used in the maritime aips cogne and perroud 1985 when applied to the preliminary paleom gnetic results ob tained from ordovician deformed redbeds of brittany it allows to recover a conclu sive primary magnetization direction although the characteristic magnetizations

paleomagnetism of the late ordovician thouars massif vendee province france a paleomagnetic study of the late ordovician thouars massif reveals very steep components of magnetization directed upward and downward and with thermally discrete blocking temperatures of 550 to 580 c this characteristic magnetization yields a mean direction with declination inclination 340 83 with k 27 and 95 7 based on 15 sites the south paleopole is located at 34 n 5 e a partial magnetic overprint of hercynian age is observed in sites close to the south armorican shear zone the 15 sites are spread over some 20 by 30 km and the internal consistency of the site mean directions indicates that differential tilting of parts of the massif has not occurred since it appears to be unlikely that the entire massif was tilted we infer that the characteristic direction is primary and that the paleopole adequately represents the local magnetic field in the late ordovician the paleopole for the thouars massif supports previously obtained results from other ordovician rocks in hercynian europe but it is the first result to pass modern reliability criteria the high ordovician paleolatitudes of the armorican massif other areas in hercynian europe and north western africa indicate that gondwana and armorica were adjacent until late ordovician time low paleolatitudes for late devonian time suggest that armorica underwent rapid northward motion at a rate of about 10 cm yr during the silurian and earliest devonian armorica is thought to have collided with north america and the baltic shield russian platform before or during the early devonian forming the old red continent the collisions produced the caledonian and acadian orogenic belts

a complex tibetan upper mantle a fragmented indian slab and no south verging subduction of eurasian lithosphere due to the non uniform seismic station coverage in tibet critically important questions remain about the existence of southward continental subduction of eurasia beneath northern tibet from north and the nature of the underthrusting indian lithosphere underneath southern tibet from south using differential p and s wave travel times measured from 301 stations of all the temporary experiments deployed throughout tibet we constructed a comprehensive tomographic model the upper mantle of northern tibet consists of a rather homogeneous low velocity zone with no evidence of southward asian continental subduction in contrast the upper mantle from the himalayas to central tibet exhibits laterally variable p and s wave velocities significant low velocity zones are observed that are elongated in a north south direction and extending to at least 150 km depth which we interpret as evidences for fragmentation of the underthrusting indian continental lithosphere

cenozoic tectonic evolution of qaidam basin and its surrounding regions part 1 the southern qilian shan nan shan thrust belt and northern qaidam basin cenozoic qaidam basin the largest active intermountain basin inside tibet figures importantly in the debates on the history and mechanism of tibetan plateau formation during the cenozoic indo asian collision to determine when and how the basin was developed we conducted detailed geologic mapping and analyses of a dense network of seismic reflection profiles from the southern qilian shan nan shan thrust belt and northern qaidam basin our geologic observations provide new constraints on the timing and magnitude of cenozoic crustal thickening in northern tibet specifically our work shows that the southernmost part of the qilian shan nan shan thrust belt and contractional structures along the northern margin of qaidam basin were initiated in the paleocene early eocene 65 50 ma during or immediately after the onset of the indo asian collision this finding implies that stress was transferred rapidly through tibetan lithosphere to northern tibet from the indo asian convergent front located 1000 km to the south the development of the thrust system in northern qaidam basin was driven by motion on the altyn tagh fault as indicated by its eastward propagation away from the altyn tagh fault the eastward lengthening of the thrust system was spatially and temporally associated with eastward expansion of qaidam basin suggesting thrust loading was the main control on the basin formation and evolution the dominant structure in northern qaidam basin is a southwest tapering triangle zone which started to develop since the paleocene and early eocene 65 50 ma and was associated with deposition of an overlying southwest thickening growth strata sequence recognition of the triangle zone and its longevity in northern qaidam basin explains a long puzzling observation that cenozoic depocenters have been located consistently along the central axis of the basin this basin configuration is opposite to the prediction of classic foreland basin models that require the thickest part of foreland sediments deposited along basin edges against basin bounding thrusts restoration of balanced cross sections across the southern qilian shan nan shan thrust belt and northern qaidam basin suggests that cenozoic shortening strain is highly inhomogeneous varying from 20 to 60 both vertically in a single section and from section to section across the thrust belt the spatially variable strain helps explain the conflicting paleomagnetic results indicating different amounts of cenozoic rotations in different parts of qaidam basin the observed crustal shortening strain also implies that no lower crustal injection or thermal events in the mantle are needed to explain the current elevation 3000 3500 m and crustal thickness 45 50 km of northern qaidam basin and the southern qilian shan nan shan thrust belt instead thrusting involving continental crystalline basement has been the main mechanism of plateau construction across northern qaidam basin and the southern qilian shan nan shan region

a low velocity belt beneath northern and eastern tibetan plateau from pn tomography 1 new pn tomography on tibetan plateau tp and neighboring region is conducted with data assembled from various sources the improved pn tomographic image delineates several distinct geophysical regimes that are approximately separated by geological boundaries at surface dense distribution of the stations in the eastern half of the plateau allows us to infer a 3d view of crustal thickness variation of the region the most striking feature is the bended low velocity belt lvb which extends from west to east beneath qiangtang block and songpan ganzi fold belt sgfb in northern tp and then turns consistently southward with sgfb beneath eastern tp and further south to indo china the consistency between geological boundaries on surface and sharp velocity contrast boundaries in uppermost mantle may suggest strong deformation coupling between crust and at least uppermost mantle if not whole lithosphere a north south striking lvb is also observed cutting through the southern tp coinciding with the yadong gulu rift at surface our tomographic results are generally consistent with dynamic models that involve with underthrusting in the southern tp shortening in the northern tp and extrusion to the east and the southeast furthermore our results suggest significant east west variations in the structure and dynamics