“…The SCTSZ roughly runs from east to west along the Baluntai fault, the south Nalati fault, and the Atbashi–Inylchek fault, and continues along the south Ferghana fault to the west of the Talas–Ferghana fault. The suture zone is marked by discrete late Neoproterozoic to Carboniferous ophiolitic mélanges, (U)HP metamorphic terranes (i.e., Akyazi, Atbashi, and Kassan), and ocean plate stratigraphical elements (e.g., Alexeiev et al, ; Dolgopolova et al, ; Gao et al, ; Hegner et al, ; Jiang et al, ; Mühlberg et al, ; Safonova et al, ; Sang et al, ). However, some authors dispute that the Kyrgyz Middle Tianshan is the westward extension of the Chinese Central Tianshan and, instead, interpret the STB as its westward extension bounded by the south Nalati–Atbashi–Inylchek fault (also SCTSZ) to the north (Charvet et al, ; Wang et al, ; Wang, Zhai, et al, ).…”