GEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION AND GENESIS OF THE CENTRAL PAMIRS

Abstract

The central Pamirs (CP) as an element of the Alpine Afghanistan-Central Pamir-Tashkurgan Fold System (Fig. 1) is characterized by diverse and multistage sedimentation, magmatism, and metamorphism spanning a wide (Proterozoic-Cenozoic) time interval. Perfect exposures, deep vertical incisions, comprehensive geological investigations (especially in Tajikistan, and abundant information on crystalline basement and abyssal xenoliths allow us to use the CP as a test site for the study of evolution and genesis of intra-continental structures in the Alpine-Himalayan Mobile Belt.