Intraplate deformation

Ductile rocks tend to bend, fold, stretch, or flow due to compressional or extensional forces.

[3] Many geophysical observations in Tibet show a weak crustal zone and suggest that the middle to lower crust may contain fluids and be partially melted.

[4] As the Himalayan-Tibet region began to rise, lateral extrusion of the crust in the Tibetan plateau gradually became the dominant mechanism for accommodating the collision and crustal shortening.

True intraplate deformation occurs farther north in areas such as Mongolia or the Tian Shan mountains.

These areas display true intraplate deformation because there is still much faulting and folding to accommodate some of the crustal shortening from the India/Eurasia collision hundreds of kilometers away from the plate margin.

Figure 1: East Asia topographic map. The large brown area is the Tibetan plateau and the Tien Shan mountains to the northwest. Almost the whole central landmass in view is deformed from the collision of India into Asia around 50 million years ago.
Figure 2: Same image as Figure 1 but without any intraplate deformation throughout Asia from the India-Asia collision.