TY - JOUR A1 - Sobel, Edward A1 - Chen, Jie A1 - Heermance, Richard V. T1 - Late Oligocene-Early Miocene initiation of shortening in the Southwestern Chinese Tian Shan : implications for Neogene shortening rate variations N2 - The Cenozoic Tian Shan is one of the preeminent examples of an intracontinental orogen. However, there remains a significant controversy over when deformation related to the India-Asia collision commenced and therefore how shortening within the mountains has been partitioned over time. One approach has been to look at the modem shortening rate as measured by geodetic studies, combined with estimates of the total shortening across the range and extrapolate backwards. This approach suggests that the onset of range construction was ca. 10 Ma [K.Y. Abdrakhmatov, S.A. Aldazhanov, B.H. Hager, M.W Hamburger, T.A. Herring, K.B. Kalabaev, K.B. Kalabayev, V.I. Makarov, P. Molnar, S.V Panasyuk, M.T. Prilepin, R.E. Reilinger, I.S. Sadybakasov, B.J. Souter, Y.A. Trapeznikov, V.Y. Tsurkov, A.V. Zubovich, Relatively recent construction of the Tien Shan inferred from GPS measurements of present-day crustal deformation rates, Nature 384 (6608) (1996) 450-453]. An alternate method is to determine the age of the onset of exhumation using thermochronology. We present 19 new apatite fission-track (AFT) results from the southwestern Chinese portion of the belt; this region represents the first area exhumed during the late Tertiary along a transect at ca. 76 degrees E. Exhumation commenced at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary (similar to 24 Ma) along the Maidan and Muziduke thrusts, which bound the southern side of the Kokshaal range. Subsequently, deformation propagated ca. 20 km south to the Kashi basin- bounding thrust (KBT), which was exhumed by no earlier than 18.9 +/- 3.3 Ma. Three detrital AFT samples from Plio- Pleistocene strata deposited ca. 20 km farther south contain fission track grain age peaks that young monotonically upwards from 20.9 + 7.0/- 5.3 Ma to 15.9 + 5.4/- 4.0 Ma with a fairly constant lag time of 16 to 18 Ma. These ages, combined with structural data, suggest that both the hanging wall and the footwall of the KBT experienced a renewed episode of exhumation during the latest Cenozoic. The discrepancy between the Late Oligocene-Miocene initiation of significant exhumation shown herein and the 10 Ma initiation estimate from geodesy suggests that the Tian Shan has undergone a complex Late Cenozoic shortening history. Assuming that the present shortening rate could account for the total amount of Cenozoic shortening in 10 Ma and realizing that shortening initiated at least 15 Myr earlier, we conclude that the shortening rate must have varied over time, possibly in pulsed-southward migrating events, and that the present rate may not reflect the average rate since initiation of range uplift. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved Y1 - 2006 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X06002834 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2006.03.048 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rohrmann, Alexander A1 - Heermance, Richard A1 - Kapp, Paul A1 - Cai, Fulong T1 - Wind as the primary driver of erosion in the Qaidam Basin, China JF - Earth & planetary science letters N2 - Deserts are a major source of loess and may undergo substantial wind-erosion as evidenced by yardang fields, deflation pans, and wind-scoured bedrock landscapes. However, there are few quantitative estimates of bedrock removal by wind abrasion and deflation. Here, we report wind-erosion rates in the western Qaidam Basin in central China based on measurements of cosmogenic Be-10 in exhumed Miocene sedimentary bedrock. Sedimentary bedrock erosion rates range from 0.05 to 0.4 mm/yr, although the majority of measurements cluster at 0.125 +/- 0.05 mm/yr. These results, combined with previous work, indicate that strong winds, hyper-aridity, exposure of friable Neogene strata, and ongoing rock deformation and uplift in the western Qaidam Basin have created an environment where wind, instead of water, is the dominant agent of erosion and sediment transport. Its geographic location (upwind) combined with volumetric estimates suggest that the Qaidam Basin is a major source (up to 50%) of dust to the Chinese Loess Plateau to the east. The cosmogenically derived wind erosion rates are within the range of erosion rates determined from glacial and fluvial dominated landscapes worldwide, exemplifying the effectiveness of wind to erode and transport significant quantities of bedrock. KW - wind KW - cosmogenic nuclide-dating KW - earth surface processes KW - Chinese Loess Plateau KW - climate KW - Asia Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2013.03.011 SN - 0012-821X VL - 374 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rohrmann, Alexander A1 - Heermance, Richard A1 - Kapp, Paul A1 - Cai, Fulong T1 - Wind as the primary driver of erosion in the Qaidam Basin, China (vol 374, pg 1, 2013) T2 - Earth & planetary science letters Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.10.011 SN - 0012-821X SN - 1385-013X VL - 432 SP - 501 EP - 501 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -