COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Kinematic History of the Hinterlandin an Arc-Continent Collision, Taiwan

The island of Taiwan is undergoing active deformation and uplift as a result of subduction of the Philippine Sea plate under the Eurasian plate, and provides a natural laboratory to study the kinematics of collision. This project will focus on the kinematic history of the hinterland region of central Taiwan, taking advantage of the southward propagation of the arc-continent collision to proxy sequential development of deformation features. A variety of strain and kinematic indicators will be studied and the results will be applied to several major hypotheses of collision tectonics including whether the hinterland is shortening with a consistent transport direction or involves two oppositely verging transport directions and the relative importance of tectonic denudation and erosion during unroofing of the hinterland.