This study offers the first geometrically rigorous reconstruction of deformation in response to the India-Asia collision across a key portion of the western Himalaya.
The reconstruction demonstrates the viability of important concepts pertaining to the dynamic evolution of crustal-scale contractional systems.
First, despite variations in erosion and exhumation, the crystalline cores of mountain belts may be emplaced at depth.
Second, zones of rapid uplift along the length of mountain belts in their interior may result from deep accretion and stacking of slices from the down-going collisional plate.
Third, such stacking may occur in multiple systems at different crustal levels, all developing simultaneously.
Finally, the reconstruction resolves much of the apparent mismatch between shortening estimates of two different types across the western Himalaya; i.e., between estimates based on reconstructing mountain belt deformation and estimates based on restoring plate motion using sea-floor magnetic anomalies.
A. Alexander G. Webb, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA. First published on 16 May 2013, DOI: 10.1130/GES00787.1.