TS8.1/GD6.9 Plate tectonics of Asia: India-Asia collision, SE Asia, Australia-Oceania and the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (co-organized) |
Convener: Jonny Wu | Co-Conveners: Sabin Zahirovic , Douwe J. J. van Hinsbergen , Wenjiao Xiao , Keda Cai |
The rich tectonic history of the continental blocks, volcanic arcs and suture zones that comprise Asia has inspired a myriad of new tectonic concepts and geodynamic models at the forefront of modern solid-earth science. New advances refine ideas of how and where Gondwana-derived continental blocks were dispersed northward, their ensuing collisions with Asia, and the opening and closure of Tethyan and back-arc ocean basins. The geological record of East Asia and Oceania holds new clues about the plate-tectonic history of the Paleo-Pacific domain. Antarctica-Australia plate reconstructions, the evolution of Australia and its margins, and the history of the Pacific at East Asia have implications for the chronology and driving mechanisms behind major tectonic reorganizations in the region. The complex Mesozoic to Cenozoic amalgamation and reorganization of Southeast Asian terranes and subduction zones provide a more recent analogue for Central Asian Orogenic Belt accretion, which occurred from 1.0 Ga to end Permian. The Central Asian Orogenic Belt extends from the Urals through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia to the Okhotsk Sea in the Russian Far East and is arguably the largest accretionary collage on the planet.
We invite contributions of new observational constraints and novel syntheses on the Mesozoic to present-day plate tectonic history of Asia and Oceania, and on the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, from the disciplines of geology, geodesy, geophysics, tomography, seismology, stratigraphy, paleomagnetism, geochronology and related datasets. We also welcome contributions that use constraints from these regions to model the dynamics of plate tectonics.