Simultaneous mountain building in the Taiwan orogenic belt

Lee, Yuan Hsi; Byrne, Tim; Wang, Wei Hau; Lo, Wei; Rau, R.; Lu, Hsiao-feng

doi:10.1130/g36373.1

Cited by 63 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Recently, double subduction-collision systems have received quite a bit of attention, such as the Taiwan accretionary belt (e.g., Chen et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2015;Lee et al, 2015;Lin & Kuo, 2016;Van Avendonk et al, 2016), the Alps/Apennines orogen (e.g., Vignaroli et al, 2008;Zhao et al, 2016), the Western Himalaya collisional zone (e.g., Burg et al, 2006;Hall, 2012), and the Qinling-Dabie orogen (e.g., Wu & Zheng, 2013). Similar to the tectonics of Taiwan, the Alps (Corsica)/Apennines are also in a frame of double opposite dipping subductions including the eastward or southeastward Alps subduction and westward Apennines subduction suggested by geophysical studies (e.g., Giacomuzzi et al, 2011;Kissling et al, 2006;Lippitsch, 2003;Piromallo & Morelli, 2003;Solarino et al, 1996;Zhao et al, 2016;Figure 14).…”

Section: Double Subduction-collision Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mountain Building in Taiwan: Insights From 3‐D Geodynamic Models

et al. 2019

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Taiwan is widely considered to be a typical example of an arc‐continent collision surrounded by two opposite dipping subduction zones. The manner by which the interaction of the two neighboring slabs caused plate collision and mountain building is insufficiently understood. Various hypotheses have been proposed, but the geodynamic feasibility of those remains to be tested. Here we present 3‐D thermomechanical models to study the geodynamic evolution process of a Taiwan‐like setting after an initial transform fault was consumed. In our model setup, the boundary between the Eurasian plate and the South China Sea is northeast trending. The results show that all simulations result in toroidal mantle flow around the slab edges and that slab breakoff as well as a small‐scale mountain belt with high topography and crustal exhumation occurs in most cases. The Eurasian continental crust is exhumed in a dome‐like manner exposing higher‐grade metamorphic rocks, facilitated by high erosion rates and a weak continental lower crust rheology, but inhibited by the presence of a weak arc. A high topography within the orogen, as well as continental slab detachment, can develop for the convergence direction of N307° and large convergence rates. Our modeling results are thus generally consistent with the Eurasian slab‐tearing model proposed for Taiwan based on seismic tomographic studies, and we suggest that the main characteristic features in Taiwan can be explained by the combined effects of fast erosion, a weak lower crust, fast convergence, and a small convergence azimuth.

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Section: Double Subduction-collision Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mountain Building in Taiwan: Insights From 3‐D Geodynamic Models

et al. 2019

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“…The Taiwan mountain belt results from the collision between the Luzon volcanic arc on the Philippine Sea plate and the South China passive continental margin on the Eurasia plate (Figure a). Collision started 5–7 Ma ago (Ho, ; Lee et al, ; Lin et al, ; Suppe, ; Teng, ) and occurs at a rate of ~89 mm/a based on long‐term relative plate motions (Argus et al, ). Geodetic surveys at the island scale (Hsu et al, ; Lin et al, ; Tsai et al, ; Yu et al, ) show that shortening is mostly consumed along the Longitudinal Valley in eastern Taiwan, considered as the plate suture, and across the Western Foothills that consist in the deformation front.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure and Deformation History of the Rapidly Growing Tainan Anticline at the Deformation Front of the Taiwan Mountain Belt

et al. 2019

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This study aims at further documenting the mechanisms of shortening at the front of fold‐and‐thrust belts. We focus on an actively growing anticline located at the deformation front of the Taiwan fold‐and‐thrust belt. Based on a multidisciplinary approach combining mainly subsurface data and geodetic techniques, we show that the Tainan anticline is a pure‐shear fault‐bend fold growing above a 38–45° west dipping back thrust, the Houchiali fault, rooted on a 3.8‐km‐deep detachment. The cumulative shortening is estimated at 2–3 km since 310 ± 50 ka, including ~30–50% of horizontal compaction shortening. The significance of the fold is little in terms of total shortening at the scale of the mountain piedmont, yet the Holocene shortening rate of 10.3 ± 1.0 mm/a accounts for 25% of the present‐day shortening rate across the piedmont. Earthquake scaling relationships applied to the Houchiali fault predict Mw~6 earthquakes that would occur a lot more frequently than indicated from historical earthquake catalogs. Hence, the aseismic slip behavior observed from geodetic measurements since two decades is a representative behavior of the fault at least at the scale of a few centuries. Our results bear out the dominance of pure‐shear folding at the front of fold‐and‐thrust belts and support horizontal compaction as a significant shortening mechanism. In contrast, the back thrust wedge structure and the aseismic slip are peculiar characteristics that likely arise from the combination of low friction and high‐pore pressure related to the thick mudstone formation hosting the wedge and of high syntectonic sedimentation rates.

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“…It is reported that the still ongoing uplift of the Taiwan mountain belt started since circa 4–6 Ma or earlier (e.g., Byrne et al, ; Hsu et al, ; Y.‐H. Lee et al, , ; Suppe, ; Teng, ). Nowadays, the tectonic architecture in the Taiwan region encompasses a variety of deformation styles, and the crust and uppermost mantle are expected to display strong lateral seismic variations and anisotropies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambient Noise Tomography Across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan Island, and Southwestern Ryukyu Arc: Implications for Subsurface Slab Interactions

Zheng

Xiong

2019

Tectonics

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The subduction flipping in the Taiwan region leads to complexities in the lithospheric structure. To better understand the arc-continental collision process in this zone, we construct a 3-D lithospheric model of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan Island, and southwestern Ryukyu Arc. In the middle to lower crust, low velocities are mainly located beneath the Ryukyu Trough and the rifted basins in the Taiwan Strait, and high velocities are imaged in the Kuanyin and Penghu Platforms. Likely, the Kuanyin and Penghu Platforms act as relatively strong barriers that block the persistent westward advance of the western deformation front of the Taiwan mountain belt, as manifested by shape of the deformation front that withdraws to the east in the basement highs. In the mantle, high velocities are observed beneath the Central Range and Ryukyu Arc, which is interpreted as the two oppositely oriented slab subductions, that is, subduction of the Philippine Sea slab in the northeast Taiwan and Eurasian slab subduction in south Taiwan. Based on the vertical transects through our 3-D model, we find that the subduction polarity has flipped in north Taiwan, and the tectonic framework in central Taiwan is in the process of subduction polarity reversal. We also image significant low mantle velocities beneath the North Taiwan Volcanic Zone and Taihsi Basin, which may be related to the breakoff of the subducting Eurasian slab. In addition, we propose that the inherited weakness of the Taihsi Basin may have facilitated the slab breakoff in central Taiwan.Plain Language Summary In this work we collect the seismic data recorded by seismic stations in and around the Taiwan orogen and build a high-resolution lithospheric velocity model for an area including the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan Island, and southwestern Ryukyu Arc by ambient noise tomography. The model exhibits low crust velocity anomalies in the Ryukyu Trough and rifted basins of the Taiwan Strait, and low velocities in the uppermost mantle beneath the North Taiwan Volcanic Zone and Taihsi Basin. Based on the tomographic images, we clearly find that the subduction polarity has been flipped in north Taiwan, and the tectonic framework in central Taiwan is in the process of subduction polarity reversal, which is in consistent with the geological observations.

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Simultaneous mountain building in the Taiwan orogenic belt

Cited by 63 publications

References 27 publications

Mountain Building in Taiwan: Insights From 3‐D Geodynamic Models

Mountain Building in Taiwan: Insights From 3‐D Geodynamic Models

Structure and Deformation History of the Rapidly Growing Tainan Anticline at the Deformation Front of the Taiwan Mountain Belt

Ambient Noise Tomography Across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan Island, and Southwestern Ryukyu Arc: Implications for Subsurface Slab Interactions

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