Right-lateral shear along the Northwest Pacific Margin and the India-Eurasia Collision

Laurent Jolivet (1, 2) , Philippe Davy (3) , P. R. Cobbold (4)

1 Département de Géologie
2 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans
3 GR - Géosciences Rennes
4 CAESS - Centre Armoricain d'Etude Structurale des Socles

Right-lateral shear along the eastern margin of Asia, from the Eocene to the Present has led to the opening of pull-apart basins, intracontinental such as the Bohai basin, or oceanic such as the Japan Sea. We suggest in this paper that this right-lateral shear is a consequence of indentation of Asia by India. As in small-scale analog experiments, we conclude that antithetic wrench faults accommodate the counterclockwise rotation of large domino blocks between two major left-lateral shear zones (Tien Shan-Baikal-Stanovoy for the northern one, and Qin Ling for the southern one). We discuss the compatibility of this mechanism, which involves a rather small amount of extrusion, with the fast eastward expulsion described for southeast Asia. We re-emphasize the role played in the opening of marginal basins by the Pacific subduction as a free boundary to the east.

Domains: Tectonics; Global Changes

Laurent Jolivet, Philippe Davy, P. R. Cobbold. Right-lateral shear along the Northwest Pacific Margin and the India-Eurasia Collision. Tectonics, 1990, 9 (6), pp.1409-1419. ⟨10.1029/TC009i006p01409⟩. ⟨insu-00733126⟩