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Seismic image of the Tarim basin and its collision with Tibet

¹ Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 115, ROC
² Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, PRC
³ Department of Earth Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 701, ROC
⁴ Institute of Geophysics, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan 320, ROC, and Seismology Center, Central Weather Bureau, Taipei 100, ROC
⁵ Department of Geological Sciences, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York 13902, USA

A broadband seismic deployment in 1998–1999 in southwestern Tarim provided data for imaging the crust and upper mantle across the contact between the Tarim block and the Tibetan Plateau. A profile composed of migrated teleseismic receiver functions clearly shows lateral structural changes. The crust under the Tarim basin is relatively simple. The Moho discontinuity is mapped at a depth of 42 km near the northern end of the array and dips gently toward the south to 50 km under the Kunlun foreland. The Tarim basin appears to be rigid, with little shortening. Farther to the south, the imaging reveals a complex of reflectors in the lower crust and the upper mantle. There are both north- and south-dipping upper mantle structures under the Kunlun foreland and Kunlun Shan region. We found the observations to be more consistent with a model of lithospheric collision in which the crust and the upper mantle on both sides interpenetrate and deform.

Key Words: receiver function image • lithospheric collision • Tarim • Tibet

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