Apatite fi ssion-track thermochronology data elucidate the cooling/exhumation history of the Qinling (Qin Mountains), which contain a Paleozoic−Mesozoic orogenic collage north of the Sichuan Basin and northeast of the Tibetan Plateau. In particular, we examine the extent to which the Qinling were affected by the rising plateau. The northern and eastern Qinling show continuous cooling and slow exhumation since the Cretaceous. In contrast, in the southwestern Qinling, rapid cooling initiated at 9−4 Ma, a few million years later than in the eastern Tibetan Plateau. A compilation of major Cenozoic faults in the eastern Tibetan Plateau and the Qinling, and their kinematic and dynamic characterization, shows that deformation in the Qinling has predominantly been strike slip. Active sinistral and dextral strike-slip faults delineate an area of eastward rock fl ow and bound the area of rapid late Cenozoic cooling outlined by apatite fi ssion-track thermochronology. These data can be interpreted to indicate that lower crustal fl ow has been diverted around the Longmen Shan and beneath the southwestern Qinling, causing active plateau uplift in this area. Alternatively, northeastern Tibet may be growing eastward faster in the western Qinling than the entire South China Block is extruding to the east.

Geothermochronologic data outline the temperature‐deformation‐time evolution of the Muskol and Shatput gneiss domes and their hanging walls in the Central Pamir. Prograde metamorphism started before ~35 Ma and peaked at ~23–20 Ma, reflecting top‐to‐ ~N thrust‐sheet and fold‐nappe emplacement that tripled the thickness of the upper ~7–10 km of the Asian crust. Multimethod thermochronology traces cooling through ~700–100°C between ~22 and 12 Ma due to exhumation along dome‐bounding normal‐sense shear zones. Synkinematic minerals date normal sense shear‐zone deformation at ~22–17 Ma. Age‐versus‐elevation relationships and paleoisotherm spacing imply exhumation at ≥3 km/Myr. South of the domes, Mesozoic granitoids record slow cooling and/or constant temperature throughout the Paleogene and enhanced cooling (7–31°C/Myr) starting between ~23 and 12 Ma and continuing today. Integrating the Central Pamir data with those of the East (Chinese) Pamir Kongur Shan and Muztaghata domes, and with the South Pamir Shakhdara dome, implies (i) regionally distributed, Paleogene crustal thickening; (ii) Pamir‐wide gravitational collapse of thickened crust starting at ~23–21 Ma during ongoing India‐Asia convergence; and (iii) termination of doming and resumption of shortening following northward propagating underthrusting of the Indian cratonic lithosphere at ≥12 Ma. Westward lateral extrusion of Pamir Plateau crust into the Hindu Kush and the Tajik depression accompanied all stages. Deep‐seated processes, e.g., slab breakoff, crustal foundering, and underthrusting of buoyant lithosphere, governed transitional phases in the Pamir, and likely the Tibet crust.

New structural, geochronological, and petrological data highlight which crustal sections of the North American–Caribbean Plate boundary in Guatemala and Honduras accommodated the large-scale sinistral offset. We develop the chronological and kinematic framework for these interactions and test for Palaeozoic to Recent geological correlations among the Maya Block, the Chortís Block, and the terranes of southern Mexico and the northern Caribbean. Our principal findings relate to how the North American–Caribbean Plate boundary partitioned deformation; whereas the southern Maya Block and the southern Chortís Block record the Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic collision and eastward sinistral translation of the Greater Antilles arc, the northern Chortís Block preserves evidence for northward stepping of the plate boundary with the translation of this block to its present position since the Late Eocene. Collision and translation are recorded in the ophiolite and subduction–accretion complex (North El Tambor complex), the continental margin (Rabinal and Chuacús complexes), and the Laramide foreland fold–thrust belt of the Maya Block as well as the overriding Greater Antilles arc complex. The Las Ovejas complex of the northern Chortís Block contains a significant part of the history of the eastward migration of the Chortís Block; it constitutes the southern part of the arc that facilitated the breakaway of the Chortís Block from the Xolapa complex of southern Mexico. While the Late Cretaceous collision is spectacularly sinistral transpressional, the Eocene–Recent translation of the Chortís Block is by sinistral wrenching with transtensional and transpressional episodes. Our reconstruction of the Late Mesozoic–Cenozoic evolution of the North American–Caribbean Plate boundary identified Proterozoic to Mesozoic connections among the southern Maya Block, the Chortís Block, and the terranes of southern Mexico: (i) in the Early–Middle Palaeozoic, the Acatlán complex of the southern Mexican Mixteca terrane, the Rabinal complex of the southern Maya Block, the Chuacús complex, and the Chortís Block were part of the Taconic–Acadian orogen along the northern margin of South America; (ii) after final amalgamation of Pangaea, an arc developed along its western margin, causing magmatism and regional amphibolite–facies metamorphism in southern Mexico, the Maya Block (including Rabinal complex), the Chuacús complex and the Chortís Block. The separation of North and South America also rifted the Chortís Block from southern Mexico. Rifting ultimately resulted in the formation of the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous oceanic crust of the South El Tambor complex; rifting and spreading terminated before the Hauterivian (c. 135 Ma). Remnants of the southwestern Mexican Guerrero complex, which also rifted from southern Mexico, remain in the Chortís Block (Sanarate complex); these complexes share Jurassic metamorphism. The South El Tambor subduction–accretion complex was emplaced onto the Chortís Block probably in the late Early Cretaceous and the Chortís Block collided with southern Mexico. Related arc magmatism and high-T/low-P metamorphism (Taxco–Viejo–Xolapa arc) of the Mixteca terrane spans all of southern Mexico. The Chortís Block shows continuous Early Cretaceous–Recent arc magmatism.

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Along the Ghissar-Alai Range of the southwestern Tian Shan (southwestern Kyrgyzstan, northern Tajikistan), the deformation front of the India-Asia collision-the Pamir-Tibet orogen-is interacting with the intracontinental Tian Shan orogen without the intervening Tarim Craton. Apatite fission track (n = 33,~3.3-145.6 Ma, 27% <10 Ma) and (U-Th)/He (n = 32,~1.9-26.1 Ma, 56% <10 Ma) thermochronologic ages suggest approximate isothermal holding (very slow cooling to weak reheating) during relative tectonic quiescence between~150 and 15 Ma. Accelerated exhumation (~0.2-1.0 km/Myr, median~0.5 km/Myr) and cooling (11-16°C/Myr) occurred over the last~10 Myr. Geomorphologic parameters-incision, river steepness, and concavity-confirm the youth of the southwestern Tian Shan's mountain building. High exhumation/cooling rates are correlated with pronounced local relief, produced by Cenozoic faults reactivating inherited (Late Paleozoic) structures. Regions with similarly young exhumation are centered along rims of rigid crustal blocks in the central and eastern Tian Shan. Structurally, the Ghissar-Alai Range is a broad, east trending zone of dextral transpression that includes the northern Tajik Basin (Illiak Fault Zone) and the Pamir Thrust System of the frontal northern Pamir. It is the particular deformation field at the northwestern tip of the India-Asia collision-the interaction of the westward gravitational collapse of the Pamir Plateau into the Tajik Basin with the bulk northward motion of the Pamir-that transformed the southwestern Tian Shan into a dextral transpression belt. The dextral transpression in the southwestern Tian Shan contrasts with sinistral strike-slip shear localized along inherited fault zones, accommodating dominant north-south shortening, in the central and eastern Tian Shan. The deformation field influenced by the Pamir and the associated young exhumation make the Ghissar-Alai Range a unique feature in the Tian Shan orogen.