Tectonic mechanisms involved in the progressive deformation of arcuate collision belts: examples from Northern Taiwan
Liang Shen-hsiung
Abstract
The neotectonic evolution of the northern Taiwan mountain belts is mainly controlled by the late Tertiary oblique convergence between the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate, for example, the difference in strikes between these segments of the curved belt ranges from 40¢X in the Western Foothills to about 90¢X in the eastern boundary of the Backbone Range.Lu et al.(1995) tried to explain the structural phenomena such as contraction, transcurrent, block rotation and extension using the 3-D sandbox modeling experiments, stratigraphy and structures of northern Taiwan, paleomagnetic data, and tectonic analyses.They interpreted the curved belt of northern Taiwan in terms of contractional deformation combined with increasing block rotation, bookshelf-type strikes-slip faulting and extension.Their study demonstrates that in Taiwan, contractional, extensional and transcurrent tectonics as well as rotations combine together and interact within a single complex framework.The crescent-shaped mountain belt develops in response to oblique indentation by an asymmetric wedge indenter. The distribution, nature and relative importance of these deformation modes are s function of the shape of the indenter and the average direction of convergence.
References
Angelier, J., Bergerat, F., Chu, H.T., and Lee, T.Q., 1990. Tectonic analysis and the evolution of a curved collision belt: the HsuehshanRange, northern Taiwan, Tectonophysics, 183, p77-96
(Abstract) (Full text)
Lu, C.Y., Angelier, J., Chu, H.T., and Lee, J.C., 1995. Contractional, transcurrent, rotational and extensional tectonics: examples from Northern Taiwan, Tectoniphysics, 246, p129-146