The Miocene Acceleration of Strike-Slip Deformation in the Northern Tian Shan, Central Asia

Abstract The Tian Shan has been deformed during the Cenozoic as a far-field response to the India–Eurasia collision. This contribution reports new apatite fission-track (AFT) and apatite (U-Th)/He data from the northern Tian Shan, including areas along the southern margin of the Junggar Basin and adjacent to the western segment of the Bolokenu-Aqikekuduk Fault (BAF). Thermal history modeling of the presented data suggests that the Cenozoic exhumation along the basin margin started >20 Ma, and the oblique-slip BAF could have been active since at least ~10 Ma with a total exhumation magnitude of ~2 km during the late Cenozoic. Since then, the mean exhumation rate on southern wall of the BAF is comparable to the Quaternary uplift rate previously measured on the same segment of the fault. To examine the extent of the Miocene acceleration of the transpressional deformation pattern, an exhumation model since 50 Ma was established by inverse modeling >1000 published and new AFT and (U-Th)/He ages from the Tian Shan and the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. The model suggests that after the initial unroofing, a significant acceleration in exhumation occurred during 15–10 Ma, in regions including the interiors of northern and southwestern Tian Shan near major strike-slip structures. This change coincided with the northward propagation of the Pamir and the eastward expansion of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau along the west and south margins of the Tarim Basin, respectively.