Initiation and Long-Term Slip History of the Altyn Tagh Fault

New Tertiary piercing points along the eastern and central Altyn Tagh fault, the northern boundary of the Tibetan Plateau, allow construction of the first well-defined time-displacement curve for the fault. Displacement-history analysis indicates: (1) late Oligocene-earliest Miocene inception of the Altyn Tagh fault; (2) 375 ± 25 km of total left-lateral slip on the eastern and central segment of the Altyn Tagh fault; and (3) an average long-term Cenozoic slip rate of approximately 12-16 mm/year. These results demonstrate that Himalayan deformation propagated well into the interior of Asia by early Miocene time and that a significant amount of India-Asia convergence was accommodated by sinistral slip on the Altyn Tagh fault.