TECTONIC SETTING AND STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION OF THE LATE CENOZOIC GOBI ALTAI OROGEN, MONGOLIA
Modern mountain building processes in the Gobi Altai typically involve reactivation of NW-striking basement structures in thrust mode and development of linking E-W left-lateral strike-slip faults which crosscut basement structures within an overall left-lateral transpressional regime. Restraining bends, other transpressional ridges and thrusted basement blocks are the main range type, but are discontinuously distributed and separated by internally drained basins filling with modern alluvial deposits. Unlike a contractional thrust belt, there is no orogenic foreland or hinterland, and thrusts are both NE and SW directed with no evidence for a basal decollement. Normal faults related to widespread Cretaceous rifting in the region appear to be unfavourably oriented for Late Cenozoic reactivation despite widespread topographic inversion of Cretaceous basin sequences. Because the Gobi Altai is an actively developing youthful mountain range in an arid region with low erosion rates, it provides an excellent opportunity to study the way a continental interior reactivates due to a distant continental collision. In addition, it offers important insights into how other more advanced intracontinental transpressional orogens may have developed during earlier stages of their evolution.