Qiangtang terrane



The Qiantang terrane is one of three main west-east-trending terranes of the Tibetan Plateau.

During the Triassic, a southward-directed subduction along its northern margin resulted in the Jin-Shajing suture, the limit between it and the Songpan-Ganzi terrane. During the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, the Lhasa terrane merged with its southern margin along the Bangong suture. This suture, the closure of part of the Tethys Ocean, transformed the Qiantang terrane into a large-scale anticline. The merging of the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes resulted in the uplift of a palaeoplateau known as the Qiangtang Plateau, which rapidly thinned later in the Cretaceous.

The Qiantang terrane is now located at c. 5000 m above sea level, but the timing of this uplift remains debated, with estimates ranging from the Pliocene-Pleistocene (3–5 Mya) to the Eocene (35 Mya) when the plateau was first denudated.