TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

Orogeny

TS Must-Read – Yin and Harrison (2000) Geologic evolution of the Himalaya-Tibetan Orogen

and July 22, 2022
TS Must-Read – Yin and Harrison (2000) Geologic evolution of the Himalaya-Tibetan Orogen

Yin and Harrison (2000) puts together an exhaustive review of three decades of geological and geophysical investigations on the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen. This research supports the orogenesis started during the Cenozoic between 70 and 50 Ma ago as a consequence of the Indo-Asian collision following the closure of the Tethys ocean between Laurasia and Gondwana. Yin and Harrison (2000) underlines th ...[Read More]

TS Must Read paper – Foreland Basin Systems, DeCelles & Giles (1996)

February 28, 2022
TS Must Read paper – Foreland Basin Systems, DeCelles & Giles (1996)

Foreland Basin Systems, by DeCelles and Giles (1996), expands the concept of foreland basin into the more comprehensive and integrative concept of foreland basin systems. Foreland basin systems can be defined, as per this TS must-read paper, as compressional regions where various tectonic forces lead to flexural responses of a variable wavelength, which may in turn lead to up to four areas with po ...[Read More]

TS Must-Read – Platt (1986): Dynamics of orogenic wedges and the uplift of high-pressure metamorphic rocks

May 12, 2021
TS Must-Read – Platt (1986): Dynamics of orogenic wedges and the uplift of high-pressure metamorphic rocks

Orogens are the locus of intense deformation and metamorphism, mainly caused by convergent tectonics and burial. Yet, deeply buried rocks – metamorphosed at high pressure (HP) – are customarily met at the surface, even in “recent” systems such as the Alps. The long-standing question is naturally “how are these rocks brought back to the surface?” At the time John Platt wrote his manuscr ...[Read More]

TS Must-Read – Dewey and Bird (1970) Mountain belts and the new global tectonics

December 7, 2020
TS Must-Read – Dewey and Bird (1970) Mountain belts and the new global tectonics

Long after the first attempts made by Wegener (1915)⁠, the theory of plate tectonics was progressively accepted by the Earth sciences community in the thrilling ‘60s thanks to observations from mid-ocean ridges (see TS-must-read blogpost of September 2, 2020; Dietz, 1961; Heezen and Tharp, 1965, Hess, 1962; Vine and Matthews, 1963)⁠. The question is then, what goes on at convergent boundaries, whe ...[Read More]

Beyond Tectonics: How mountain building shaped biodiversity

January 31, 2020
Beyond Tectonics: How mountain building shaped biodiversity
Humboldt's drawing of vegetation zones at mountains of the Andes, Tenerife, Himalaya, Alpes and Pyrenees, and Lapland, inspired by his travels through Europe and South America. Available via license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

This edition of “Beyond Tectonics” is brought to you by Lydian Boschman. Lydian is a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich. She has a background in geology and plate tectonic reconstructions, but now works with a group of biodiversity modelers of the Landscape Ecology group at ETH, bridging the gap between geology and biology. In her research, she focuses on the uplift history of the Andes, and ho ...[Read More]