Multi‐Stage Uplift and Propagation of the Chinese East Tianshan During the Cenozoic

Abstract The ongoing India‐Asia convergence during the Cenozoic drove intensively compressional deformation in the northern margins of the Tibetan Plateau, such as Tianshan, which formed the highest mountain peaks and lowest intermontane basins in the Central Asia. Understanding the spatial‐temporal evolution of the Tianshan and its marginal fold‐thrust belts (FTB) are crucial for interpreting intracontinental deformation processes related to the India‐Asia collision. In this work, low‐temperature thermochronology data and growth strata analysis are integrated to constrain chronologically the onset of deformation of the structures in FTB (Belt I, II, and the Huoyanshan Anticline) along the southern front of the Chinese East Tianshan (CETS), and then to underpin the Cenozoic deformational model of the CETS. We propose a three‐stage expansion model to reveal the processes by which the southern thrust belts in the CETS have extended into the Turpan Basin since the Oligocene. Stage 1: thrusting of the South Bogda Fault since ∼30 Ma, which caused the initial uplift of the CETS; Stage 2: deformation expanded southward to the Tarlang River region at ∼20 Ma; Stage 3: the thrust belts propagated southward in a thin‐skinned structural style to the Huoyanshan Anticline in the central part of the Turpan Basin since ∼10 Ma. The progressive propagation of FTB in the southern piedmont of the CETS could have responded to multi‐stage uplift of the Tibetan Plateau during the Cenozoic.