The exposed width of the red stratum is more than 160 kilometers from north to south and nearly 600 kilometers from east to west. The large outcropping area of red strata is rare in China. The “Red Mountains” are brick-red and purple-red rocks of Tanggula Mountain after weathering and denudation, which were transported by rivers to the Hoh Xil Basin and deposited. Later, they were transformed by geological tectonic movements and exposed to the ground, forming the current landform.
(Published by Xinhua News Agency)
According to Xinhua News Agency, Hoh Xil, located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is the largest uninhabited area in my country. During the ongoing scientific expedition of the Yangtze River source of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), the scientific expedition team discovered a rare large-scale “red mountain range” in Hoh Xil. The discovery of this special geological phenomenon will help to deepen the scientific research on the uplift process of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
According to Shen Tianyi, an associate professor of the School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), a member of the scientific research team, these “red mountains” in the Hoh Xil Basin were mainly formed between the late Cretaceous period and the ancient period between more than 70 million and 30 million years ago. discipline. The mountain ranges in a nearly east-west direction, with asymmetrical two slopes, steep in the south and gentle in the north, and the stratigraphic section is clearly exposed. It is a spectacular ancient geological relic on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Geological studies have found that more than 30 million years ago, Hoh Xil had a very low altitude and was in a state of large lakes. Later, with the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Hoh Xil uplifted to form an inter-mountain basin. According to the expedition team, the geological landscape of the “Red Mountains” in Hoh Xil is expected to become a large-scale “geological park” in Hoh Xil, and the rich geological information contained in it is closely related to the uplift process of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
(Wang Cheng, Zhang Long, Chen Jie)