Geophysical survey and geodynamic study of crust and upper mantle in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Abstract

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, covering a vast territory and characterized by an extremely complicated structure, is considered as the ideal region to study continent-continent collision, convergence and subduction of plates, and formation of the plateau. Since 1958, a great number of geophysical surveys have been conducted on the crust and upper mantle of the Plateau, totaling about 45,000 km in line-length. Compilation and integration of the data from these surveys has provided new summary diagrams, enabling the authors to present a review of some of the remarkable achievements over the past 50 years.