On October 15, researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced that Academician Xiao Wenjiao’s team had carried out systematic low-temperature thermochronological studies on the Western Kunlun Orogenic Belt, revealing rapid exhumation during the Late Miocene. This provides crucial evidence for understanding the timing of the India–Asia lithospheric collision and the growth of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. The findings were recently published in the international journal Geology.

The uplift and growth of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau is a central topic in Earth science. The prevailing view is that the plateau and the Indian craton sutured near Lhasa in the south. Deep geophysical observations, however, show that the Indian lithosphere is subducting northward at a low angle, with its leading edge extending hundreds of kilometers beneath the plateau. Receiver function studies further confirm that the western front of the Indian slab has already reached beneath the Western Kunlun. This deep subduction process is the key driver of Cenozoic orogeny along the plateau’s northwestern margin. Yet, how surface deformation responds to deep dynamic processes remains a major controversy in the field.

Addressing this question, Xiao Wenjiao’s team conducted comprehensive low-temperature thermochronological research on the Western Kunlun Orogenic Belt and identified two episodes of rapid uplift in the Late Miocene, occurring around 11–10 million years ago (Ma) and 7–6 Ma, respectively. These two events indicate that the northwestern margin of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau experienced significant crustal shortening and episodic uplift during this time, refining previous understandings of tectonic activity in the region.

The study shows that the rapid uplift around 11–10 Ma corresponds to the initial “hard collision” between the Indian and Tarim plates. This event caused the convergence rate between the Indian and Eurasian plates to slow markedly and stabilize after ~11 Ma, while also triggering (ultra-)potassic magmatic activity in the Western Kunlun region at ≤10 Ma. Similar uplift responses around 11 Ma were recorded across the plateau and adjacent orogenic belts such as the Tian Shan.

Notably, since the Oligocene, both cooling ages and (ultra-)potassic magmatic activity ages show a trend of becoming progressively younger from the plateau interior (the Qiangtang–Lhasa blocks) toward the Western Kunlun. This spatial–temporal evolution pattern is controlled by the continuous northward indentation of the Indian plate into Asia. The subduction, collision, and subsequent tearing of the Indian slab collectively governed the plateau’s “outward growth” and “magmatic migration.”

(Reported by Liang Le, Science and Technology Daily)