Collision between India and Asia over the past 40 to 50 million years has produced the Tibetan plateau, the largest and highest in the world. To the north, the plateau ends at the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. Across the Tarim Basin the Tian Shan mountain range also are due to the India-Asia collision, but how the stresses were transmitted across the basin are unclear. This project involves structural, magnetostratigraphic, thermochronologic and sedimentological studies aimed at developing the evolutionary history of the southern Tian Shan and northern Tibetan Plateau. Results will provide initial constraints on fault kinematics, cooling histories and magnitude and rate of shortening along the southern rim of the Tian Shan and the Plateau.
