Large Accretionary Complexes of the World: Evolution of the southern segment of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Valerian Bachtadse
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2008 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 55313431

This is a collaborative research project with scientists from Russia, China, France and Mongolia.The aim is to elucidate the tectonic-geodynamic, chronologic and palaeogeographic and evolutionof one of the largest accretionary orogens on Earth, the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), aspart of the ERAS-Initiative (Earth accretionary systems in space and time) of the InternatioinalLithosphere Program (ILP). We are planning integrated structural, geochronological, palaeomagneticand geochemical studies on Neoproterozoic to Palaeozoic rocks in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,the Xinjiang Province of NW-China and southern Mongolia. We expect to establish an assemblageof terranes of different ages that accreted and collided to form one of the largest, but least understood,orogenic systems on Earth. This project should contribute to a better understanding ofaccretionary orogenic processes and is a contribution to ILP. Field- and laboratory work will becarried out jointly by groups from Mainz, Munich, Moscow, Beijing, Strasbourg and Ulaanbaatar.This is also a contribution to IGCP-Project 480.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China, France, Russia
• Partner Organisation: Russian Foundation for Basic Research
• Participating Persons: Dr. Dimitri Alexeiev; Professor Dr. Michel Corsini; Professor Dr. Dunyi Liu