Eurasia as the scene of the Late Cenozoic tectogenesis

This paper attempts to review the descriptions on the genetic series of neotectonic forms in Eurasia. Morphotectonically, the Eurasian continental block exhibits a radial-concentric pattern consisting of four kinds of tectonic units: platforms, rejuvenated and youthful mobile belts, and the continent-ocean transition zones. Vast areas of young and ancient platforms, such as Siberia, have experienced slow-rate Late-Cenozoic uplift and little interior deformation. The youthful orogenic belts are clustered into the giant Alpine-Himalayan megabelt. The rejuvenated mountain belts are characterized by a variety of structural-morphological types of orogens, such as domelike uplifts, block uplifts and intermountain basins. The continent-ocean transition zones in Eastern Asia, including marginal rifts and extensional basins, are resulted from interaction between the continental block and Pacific Ocean and Philippine Sea since the Late Cenozoic. One of the conspicuous features of Eurasia is that most areas lie in the largest geoid depression of the Earth, and the NS trending Uralian-Oman lineament expresses a break on the geoid slope, implying a relationship to deep structure, including density inhomogeneities, downward to the core-mantle interface. Besides, the Eurasian continent fully demonstrates morphotectonic and recent geodynamic features of the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth, just in contrast to that of the Southern Hemisphere. It is best to view the surface morphotectonics and deep structure of the Earth as a geodynamic ensemble which has spawned the large-scale geomorphic features on the surface.