The Uplift History of the Haiyuan-Liupan Shan Region Northeast of the Present Tibetan Plateau: Integrated Constraint from Stratigraphy and Thermochronology

The Haiyuan-Liupan Shan delimits the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. We present the integrated results of new stratigraphic investigations, apatite fission track analyses, and related thermal history modeling tied to the structural fabric of this region. These constraints provide insight into the timing of northward propagation of the plateau with (1) local relief creation and enhanced erosion in the latest Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous, representing the local element of a complex, regional, far-field deformation response to the Lhasa-Qiangtang collision with the south Asian margin; (2) evidence for likely Late Cretaceous exhumation, but this is uncertain given the regional sedimentary gap that exists across this interval; (3) Eocene relief generation as a first likely response to far-field effects of the India-Asia collision and related to wider regional events recognized in this part of northwestern China; and (4) the latest deformation episode propagating strongly into the Haiyuan-Liupan Shan in the early Miocene, increasing in intensity in the later Miocene and possibly again in the Quaternary. The diachronous nature of the apparent responses to distant plate-boundary events demonstrates that structural preconditioning on its own is inadequate to account for this far-field deformation, suggesting that subcrustal tectonic architecture may play a role in the transfer of stress north of the Tibetan Plateau.