Nábelek John, Hetényi György, Vergne Jérôme, Sapkota Soma, Kafle Basant, Jiang Mei, Su Heping, Chen John, Huang Bor-Shouh
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
Science. 2009 Sep 11;325(5946):1371-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1167719.
We studied the formation of the Himalayan mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau by investigating their lithospheric structure. Using an 800-kilometer-long, densely spaced seismic array, we have constructed an image of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Himalayas and the southern Tibetan Plateau. The image reveals in a continuous fashion the Main Himalayan thrust fault as it extends from a shallow depth under Nepal to the mid-crust under southern Tibet. Indian crust can be traced to 31 degrees N. The crust/mantle interface beneath Tibet is anisotropic, indicating shearing during its formation. The dipping mantle fabric suggests that the Indian mantle is subducting in a diffuse fashion along several evolving subparallel structures.
我们通过研究喜马拉雅山脉和青藏高原的岩石圈结构来探究它们的形成过程。利用一个长达800公里、间距密集的地震台阵，我们构建了一幅喜马拉雅山脉和藏南高原下方地壳及上地幔的图像。该图像连续显示了主喜马拉雅逆冲断层，它从尼泊尔下方的浅部延伸至藏南的地壳中部。印度地壳可追踪至北纬31度。青藏高原下方的地壳/地幔界面具有各向异性，这表明其在形成过程中发生了剪切作用。倾斜的地幔构造表明，印度地幔正沿着几个不断演化的近平行结构以弥散方式俯冲。
