Central Tibetan Meso-Tethyan oceanic plateau

We report the occurrences of the remnants of a Meso-Tethyan oceanic plateau, encompassing an area of ~ 2 × 105 km2 in central Tibet. The plateau remnants include large volumes of pillow basalt formed largely by emergent to subaerial eruption, minor ultramafic intrusives and cumulates, exotic blocks of limestone, radiolarian chert, graywacke, and shale. Isotopic and paleontological dating suggest two major plateau eruptive events at 193–173 Ma...