# Unraveling Central Tibet's Sedimentary History: New Insights from the TIBETOP Project

Kévin Moreau, Guillaume Dupont-Nivet, Zhantao Feng, Lucas Rivera, Xiaomin Fang, Alexis Licht, Anne Alexandre, Jérôme Lavé, Julien Mercadier, Djordje Grujic, et al.

► To cite this version:

Kévin Moreau, Guillaume Dupont-Nivet, Zhantao Feng, Lucas Rivera, Xiaomin Fang, et al. Unraveling Central Tibet's Sedimentary History: New Insights from the TIBETOP Project. 29 ème édition de la réunion des sciences de la Terre (RST 2025), Société Géologique de France (SGF), Oct 2025, Montpellier, France. pp.658122. insu-05376156

HAL Id: insu-05376156

https://insu.hal.science/insu-05376156v1

Submitted on 21 Nov 2025

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# Unraveling Central Tibet's Sedimentary History:
## New Insights from the TIBETOP Project

Kévin Moreau*<fnref n="1" />, Guillaume Dupont-Nivet<fnref n="2" />, Zhantao Feng, Lucas Rivera<fnref n="3" />, Xiaomin Fang, Alexis Licht<fnref n="4" />, Anne Alexandre<fnref n="5" />, Jérôme Lavé<fnref n="6" />, Julien Mercadier<fnref n="7" />, Djordje Grujic<fnref n="8" />, and Aude Gébelin<fnref n="3" />

## Résumé

Reconstructing the formation and evolution of the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest mountain range and plateau, is essential for understanding the interplay between geodynamic and surface processes during orogeny, refining Cenozoic paleogeographic and paleoclimatic reconstructions, and investigating biodiversity evolution. In the Tibetan syn-collisional sedimentary basins, fossil records and isotope composition from ancient meteoric water have been widely used to estimate past elevations. However, interpreting these paleoaltimetric data remains contentious, mainly due to poorly constrained chronostratigraphic framework. This results in contrasting topographic growth scenarios, such as in central Tibet, where some authors defend the existence of a high Proto-Tibetan Plateau prior to the India-Asia collision, while others argue for low-elevation valleys persisting into the Neogene, and undergoing major uplift during the Miocene. The Lunpola Basin, located along the Bangong-Nujiang Suture, offers a key setting to resolve this debate. While recent

<footnote n="1">¹Géosciences Rennes – Université de Rennes, Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Observatoire des sciences de l'environnement de Rennes – France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Géosciences Rennes – Université de Rennes, CNRS, UMR 6118, Rennes, Université de Rennes, CNRS, UMR 6118, Rennes – France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³GeoRessources – Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, Centre de recherches sur la géologie des matières premières minérales et énergétiques, Université de Lorraine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – France</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴CEREGE – CNRS : UMR7330 – France</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵CEREGE, UMR7330, CNRS-Aix-Marseille Université, Aix En Provence, France – Terres australes françaises</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques – Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, Université de Lorraine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers : UMR7358, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMR7358 / UPR2300 / EP2031 / UPR9046 – CNRS / Université de Lorraine, 15 rue Notre-Dame des Pauvres, 54500 Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷GeoRessources (GeoRessources) – Université de Lorraine, CNRS : UMR7359, CREGU – Campus Aiguillettes Faculté des Sciences et Technologies "Entrée 3B" rue Jacques Callot BP 70239 54506 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy Cedex France, France</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸Dalhousie University [Halifax] – Canada</footnote>

<footnote>*Intervenant</footnote>
data suggest Middle to Late Eocene elevations of 1000–2000 m, increasing to 3000–4000 m
in the Early Miocene, the mechanisms driving basin formation and uplift remain unclear.
Because the mechanisms of subsidence that have governed their development are unknown,
proposed models in the literature range from rift-related origins to flexural or sag basins.
The timing of sedimentation and associated deformation is also poorly constrained, com-
plicating efforts to determine whether uplift of the Tibetan plateau occurred gradually or
episodically, and through which geodynamic processes. The ANR-funded TIBETOP project
(WP1) addresses these questions by focusing on the Lunpola Basin. A one-month field cam-
paign is scheduled for summer 2025 with three main objectives: (1) refine the chronological
framework through magneto-cyclostratigraphy and radiochronology of tuffites and carbon-
ates, (2) reconstruct basins evolution through sedimentological and structural analyses, and
(3) expand existing paleoelevations database with new approaches (volcanic glass, triple oxy-
gen analyses). This will provide crucial insights for elucidating the interaction mechanisms
between lithospheric dynamics, tectonic uplift, climate change, and biotic evolution in the
orogenic plateau. This poster presents the project's initial phase, outlining key observations
and working hypotheses.

Mots-Clés: Tibet, sedimentary basin, stratigraphy, paleoelevation