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Preliminary conclusions of the Royal Society and Academia Sinica 1985 geotraverse of Tibet

Abstract

The 1985 Chinese/British expedition to the Tibetan Plateau attempted to solve the question of the origin of the very thick crustal rocks in this region. Continuing northwards movement of the Indian plate over the past 38 Myr has given rise to severe folding and thrust faulting, causing crustal thickening by internal deformation. Previous collisions of microplate terranes derived from Gondwanaland occurred during Mesozoic times but the Kun Lun terrane of northern Tibet was already part of Laurasia by the Carboniferous.

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Chengfa, C., Nansheng, C., Coward, M. et al. Preliminary conclusions of the Royal Society and Academia Sinica 1985 geotraverse of Tibet. Nature 323, 501–507 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/323501a0

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