Back arc extension and collision : an experimental approach of the tectonics of Asia

• Published in: Geophysical Journal International
• Main Authors: Fournier, Marc, Jolivet, Laurent, Davy, Philippe, Thomas, Jean-Charles
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de tectonique (LT), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Cergy Pontoise (UCP), Université Paris-Seine-Université Paris-Seine-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre Armoricain d'Etude Structurale des Socles (CAESS), Université de Rennes (UR), Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne et Tectonophysique (LGIT), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2004
• Subjects: collision; continental deformation; experimental tectonics; extension; tectonics of Asia; [SDU.STU.TE]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Tectonics; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Okhotsk; okhotsk sea
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00021626; https://hal.science/hal-00021626/document; https://hal.science/hal-00021626/file/Fournier_et_HAL_GJI_2004.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2004.02223.x

International audience The deformation of the eastern Asian lithosphere during the first part of the India-Asia collision was dominated by subduction-related extension interacting with far effects of the collision. In order to investigate the role of large-scale extension in collision tectonics, we performed analogue experiments of indentation with a model of lithosphere subjected to extension. We used a three-layer rheological model of continental lithosphere resting upon an asthenosphere of low viscosity and strained along its southern boundary by a rigid indenter progressing northward. The lithosphere model was scaled to be gravitationally unstable and to spread under its ownweight, so that extension occurred in thewhole model. The eastern boundarywas free or weakly confined and always allowed eastward spreading of the model. We studied the pattern of deformation for different boundary conditions. The experimental pattern of deformation includes a thickened zone in front of the indenter, a major northeast-trending left-lateral shear zone starting from the northwest corner of the indenter, antithetic north-south right-lateral shear zones more or less developed to the east of the indenter, and a purely extensional domain in the southeastern part of the model. In this domain, graben opening is driven by gravitational spreading, whereas it is driven by gravitational spreading and indentation in the northeastern part where grabens opened along strike-slip faults. The results are compared with the Oligo- Miocene deformation pattern of Asia consecutive to the collision of India. Our experiments bring a physical basis to models which favour distributed deformation within a slowly extruded wide region extending from the Baikal Rift to the Okhotsk Sea and to southeast Asia and Indonesia. In this large domain, the opening of backarc basins (Japan Sea, Okinawa Trough, South China Sea) and continental grabens (North China grabens) have been associated with approximately north-south-trending right-lateral strike-slip ...