Researches on geological-tectonic evolution of Tibetan Plateau：A review, recent advances, and directions in the future

The geological-tectonic evolution of Tibetan Plateau covers the evolution of the Eastern Tethys (the predecessor of Tibetan Plateau), the Cenozoic Tibetan Plateau uplifting, and its constraints on climate and environment. The topic not only contains the historical records of spatial framework and movement related to global tectonics, but also leave abundant geological traces of spatial-temporal framework, tectonic movement, and developments of ocean-continent and basin-orogeny transition systems resulted from global lithospheric evolution process in the Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, the Tibetan Plateau is an ideal subject to research the global structure, and a key to reveal the global geodynamics. A number of researches on geological-tectonic evolution, basic geological maps compilation, and comprehensive integration have been successively carried out by our group in this region since the 1960s (especially since 1979). Based on the structural composition and evolution of major geological-tectonic events in each stage during the geological history in the Tibetan Plateau, this paper reviews the significant basic geological research of the Tibetan Plateau in the past 40 years. We systematically summarize the Cenozoic uplift process, collisional effects, and a series of important new discoveries, progress and achievements in the Eastern Tethys. In addition, based on the shortages of previous field investigation, data analysis, and regional evolution model, together with the unresolved conceptual questions, and the key basic geological scientific problems, we discuss the future direction of research in this region.