Seismic reflection and tectonic studies of the Central Himalayas, Southern Tibet

This dissertation comprises three geophysical and tectonic studies of the Central Himalayas of Southern Tibet. The studies use the technique of deep seismic reflection profiling to elucidate some of the processes associated with continent-continent collision. Each study is presented as an individual paper which reports key results of Project INDEPTH (INternational DEep Profiling of Tibet and the Himalayas). The introduction summarizes historical developments in geologic understanding of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau leading up to the project. The first paper analyzes acquisition details of INDEPTH's pilot phase, which tested the feasibility of collecting deep seismic reflection data on the Tibetan Plateau, and which also recorded the first reflection images of the world's deepest known Moho. The second paper describes reflection images collected during the first two phases of Project INDEPTH which are then used to interpret restorable cross-sections of the crustal structure of the Central Himalayas. The third paper offers a comparison of the lithospheric structure of Tibet with the Southern Appalachians to propose a simple geodynamic model for the evolution of continents from elevated Tibet-type plateaus to collapsed Appalachian-type mountain belts. The dissertation concludes with some remarks about science communication. Together, these studies combine perspectives from reflection and wide-angle seismology, structural geology, and tectonics to provide a new and more refined view of the Himalayan orogen--the type example of continent-continent collision.