Tibet 2013
Ophiolites of the Indus-Yarlung suture
In June 2013, Marco-Maffione and I joined an American-led expedition to the Indus-Yarlung suture zone that demarcates the former plate boundary between India and Asia, before the two continents started their collision. This zone is located at the boundary between the Tibetan plateau and the Himalaya mountain range, quite close (about a day drive) from Mount Everest. The expedition was held within the context of a Continental Dynamics program led by Paul Kapp (University of Arizona at Tucson) and Lin Ding (Chinese Academy of Sciences) that aims to study the collision between India and Asia. We joined the expedition to carry out paleomagnetic and structural geological research on relics of the ocean floor (ophiolites) of the - now largely disappeared - Neotethyan Ocean that once intervened the two continents. Our main aim is to study the initiation of subduction that occurred below these ophiolites presumably about 130 Ma ago. This trip was part of my ERC project 'SINK' (Subduction Initiation reconstructed from Neotethyan Kinematics). Below you find a photo impression of the trip, enjoy!
The Team
Marco Maffione, post-doc at Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Carl Guilmette, assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada
Jared Butler, Post-doc at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Nate Borneman, PhD student at the Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA
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Mary Schultz, PhD student at the Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA
Wentao Huang, PhD student at Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Kip Hodges, Professor at the Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA
Shun Li, PhD student at Beijing University, China
...and me
The Trip
Marco and I discussing with Paul Kapp and Mark Harrison in the bus from Lhasa airport to the city, where the group would split up into different field teams
Lhasa! The famous Potala, Buddhist headquarters
Streetview of Lhasa
The entire suture zone field crew 2013
Ross Waldrip, Paul Kapp and Lin Ding. Paul and Lin made this trip all possible
Last pictures together, just before taking off
Jared, hugging his last tree before not seeing one for several weeks
... and off we go
Tibetan landscape is pretty cool...
Yarlung-Tsangpo river, that flows along the India-Asia contact
The inevitable Tibetan colourful flags
We came to study ophiolites, fragments of oceanic lithosphere thrusted onto continents. To the right you see the base of the ophiolite, overturned beyond vertical. To the left, sub-ophiolitic melange.
Here the top of the same ophiolite, with an unconformable cover of Asia-derived sediments
Marco, drilling these sediments
Wentao and Carl's student, Xiao, collecting cores
The team, inspecting the contact of the Sang Sang ophiolite with its sedimentary cover at a pass at 5115 m elevation...
Sampled sandstones :)
'
Orientation device, sticking out of a dyke in serpentinite
Serpentinite. Note the pockets of unserpentinized peridotite with serpentinized veins along a regular fracture pattern
Pleasant lunch spot
Rock star with paparazzi :)
I don't know what the game was, but I think that Mary won, and Carl did not :)
Jeep taking a shortcut
Shun, measuring
Marco, studying float
Carl, disappointed after finding another sandstone :)
Nate, suggesting directions
Marco, spotting superman. Nate, amazed. Carl, jealous.
Field lunch
Carl, getting hammered
Marco, not enjoying a disgusting lunch
Back to fieldwork
Base camp
Measuring peridotite samples
Shun standing on a former ocean floor at the contact of pillow lavas and radiolarites
Marco and Shun, collecting samples
Marco, making sure we didn't bring the IPad for nothing :)
Marco, finding an awesome random pebble
Carl, being happy for him
Final ascent before going home
Failed attempt to go home
Final group pic (fltr: Nate, Marco, Wentao, Jun, Jared, Shun, Carl and Xiao)
Some last images on the way home...
Thanks all, this was an amazing trip with great scientists of a myriad of backgrounds. Fantastic way to do our job!