Journal of Earth Science, Vo l. 20, No. 2, p. 448-463, April 2009 ISSN 1674-487X
Printed in China
DOI: 10.1007/s12583-009-0037-9
Moho Depth of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Revealed by Seismic Probing
Xiong Xiaosong (熊小松), Gao Rui* (高锐), Li Qiusheng (李秋生), Lu Zhanwu (卢占武)
Lithosphere Research Centre, Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences,
Beijing 100037, China; Key Laboratory of Earthprobe and Geodynamics,
Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China
ABSTRACT: The Qinghai (青海)-Tibet plateau is the newest and biggest orogenic belt in the world and
a natural laboratory for researching continental geodynamics, such as continent-continent collision,
convergence, subduction, and plateau uplift. From the 1950s to the present, there have been many
active-source (deep seismic sounding and deep seismic reflection profiling) and passive-source seismic
probing (broadband seismic observations) implemented to reveal the crust-mantle structure. In this ar-
ticle, the authors mainly summarize the three seismic probings to discuss the Moho depth of the
Qinghai-Tibet plateau based on the previous summaries. The result shows that the Moho of the
Qinghai-Tibet plateau is very complex and its depth is very different; the whole outline of it is that the
Moho depth is deeper beneath the south than the north and deeper in the west than in the east. In the
Qiangtang (羌塘) terrane, the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the Moho is shallower than both
the southern and the northern sides. The deepest Moho is 40 km deeper than the shallowest Moho. This
trend records the crustal thickening and thinning caused by the mutual response between the India
This study was financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Nos. 40830316, 40874045), In-
ternational Sciences and Technology Cooperation (No.

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