Collaborative Research: Geodynamics of Indentor Corners PROJECT SUMMARY

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Indian; Collaborative Research: Geodynamics Of Indentor Corners
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.210.6136; http://www.ees.lehigh.edu/groups/corners/cornerdocs/corners-proposal.pdf

Across the northeastern margin of the Indian plate in southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan orogen terminates abruptly as collisional processes responsible for the elevation of Tibet and the tectonics of the main Himalayan range are replaced by the strike-slip tectonics of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis. The syntaxis occupies a sizeable portion of the diffuse India-Asia collision zone, and because it serves as the watershed for the largest rivers in Asia, its highly active tectonic and surface processes have a direct impact on over one billion people. Modeling suggests that the syntaxis is a crustal manifestation of the complex lithospheric dynamics associated with an "indentor corner. " Steep lateral velocity gradients mark the eastern margin of the Indian plate, and incoming Indian lithosphere is partitioned into at least two components: deeper Indian lithosphere that continues north beneath Tibet, and shallower lithosphere that decelerates and, together with overthrust Asian lithosphere, enters the clockwise deformation regime of the eastern syntaxis. Such corners are also sites of significant accommodation of crustal convergence by erosion and fluvial evacuation, and transfer of material between all these elements at high rates and short time scales. We propose to use the eastern syntaxis of the Himalyan orogen to address key questions in the