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At the southern boundary between India and Tibet, the Indian tectonic plate subducts northwards beneath the Tibetan Plateau. Seismic imaging shows that at the northern boundary of Tibet, the Asian plate is also subducting southwards beneath the plateau, and the Tibetan lithosphere is separate. The southern boundary between India and the Tibetan Plateau represents a classical case of continental subduction, where the Indian continental lithosphere is subducted northwards beneath the Tibetan Plateau 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . At the northern boundary, southward subduction of Asian lithosphere beneath the Tibetan Plateau has also been proposed 7 , but imaging has been hampered by inadequate data quality. Here we analyse the plate tectonic structure of the northern boundary between Tibet and Asia using the S receiver function technique. Our passive source seismic data build on, and extend further northwards, the existing geophysical data from the International Deep Profiling of Tibet and the Himalaya project 8 , 9 , 10 . We detect, beneath central and northern Tibet, a relatively thin, but separate, Tibetan lithosphere overriding the flat, southward subducting Asian lithosphere. We suggest that this overriding Tibetan lithosphere helps to accommodate the convergence between India and Asia in central and northern Tibet. We conclude that the Tibetan–Himalayan system is composed of three major parts: the Indian, Asian and Tibetan lithospheres. In the south, the Indian lithosphere underthrusts Tibet. In central and northern Tibet a separate, thin Tibetan lithosphere exists, which is underthrust by the Asian lithosphere from the north.

We studied the formation of the Himalayan mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau by investigating their lithospheric structure. Using an 800-kilometer-long, densely spaced seismic array, we have constructed an image of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Himalayas and the southern Tibetan Plateau. The image reveals in a continuous fashion the Main Himalayan thrust fault as it extends from a shallow depth under Nepal to the mid-crust under southern Tibet. Indian crust can be traced to 31°N. The crust/mantle interface beneath Tibet is anisotropic, indicating shearing during its formation. The dipping mantle fabric suggests that the Indian mantle is subducting in a diffuse fashion along several evolving subparallel structures.

To achieve the full utilization of waste rice noodle (WRN) without secondary pollution, activated carbon (AC) and carbon quantum dots/titanium dioxide (CQDs/TiO2) composite were simultaneously synthesized by using WRN as raw material. Both of the two materials showed potential applications in water pollution control. The AC based on WRN displayed a porous spherical micro-morphology, which could absorb heavy metal elements like Pb(II) and Cr(VI) efficiently, with a maximum equilibrium uptake of 12.08 mg·g−1 for Pb(II) and 9.36 mg·g−1 for Cr(VI), respectively. The adsorption of the resulted AC could match the Freundlich adsorption isotherm and the pseudo-second-order kinetics mode. On the other hand, the CQDs/TiO2 composite based on WRN displayed a high efficient photocatalytic degradation effect on various water-soluble dyes such as methylene blue, malachite green, methyl violet, basic fuchsin, and rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, which showed better photocatalytic performance than commercial TiO2. The introduction of CQDs based on WRN to TiO2 could result in efficient electron-hole pair separation and enable more photogenerated electrons to reduce O2 and more photogenerated holes to oxidize H2O or OH−, which could cause stronger abilities in producing O2·− and ·OH radical and better photocatalytic activity.

In classic orogenic models, the mountain range is underlain by a deep crustal root. Here we present the crustal and upper mantle structures along two receiver function profiles across Qilian, an orogen experiencing recent growth at the northern margin of the Tibetan plateau. Opposite to an expected crustal root beneath the orogen, the Moho beneath Qilian is arch-like, shallower beneath the center and deepens by up to 10 km beneath its southern and northern boundaries. Additional velocity interfaces sub-parallel to the Moho are observed in the lower crust of the basins south of Qilian, which we interpret as the top of a mechanically strong lower crust thrusting several tens of kilometers underneath Qilian. In the north, the small lateral offset between the surface and mantle traces of the thrust system reveals a steep boundary, indicating that the North China cratonic crust acts as a strong resistance to the northward growth of the plateau, forcing the development of the left-lateral strike-slip Haiyuan fault south of the northern Qilian suture. The young Qilian orogen thus has been rising and growing progressively from the boundaries to the center, squeezed up by more rigid tectonic blocks in the north and south.

A new A 6 B 5 O 18 -type cation deficient perovskite Sr 5 LaTi 2 Nb 3 O 18 was prepared by the conventional solid-state reaction route. The phase, microstructure, and microwave dielectric properties of the ceramic were characterized. This compound crystallizes in the trigonal system with unit cell parameter a  = 5.6101(2) Å, c  = 40.922(8) Å, V  = 1,115.4(5) Å 3 , and Z  = 3. It shows a high dielectric constant of 48, a high quality factors with Q u  ×  f of 27,806 GHz, and a small positive τ f of +19 ppm/°C.

A new Ta-based hexagonal perovskite Ba 2 La 2 TiTa 2 O 12 was synthesized by conventional solid-state reaction method. The structure and microstructure of the ceramic were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. This compound adopts A 4 B 3 O 12 cation-deficient hexagonal perovskite structure with unit cell parameter a  = 5.6825(2) Å, c  = 27.860(1) Å, V  = 779.10 Å 3 , and Z  = 3. This new dielectric ceramic exhibits a moderate dielectric constant of 37.8, a high quality factor with Q × f of 36,188 GHz and a negative τ f of −52 ppm/°C.

Earthquake location is essential when defining fault systems and other geological structures. Many methods have been developed to locate hypocenters within a 1D velocity model. In this study, a new approach, named MatLoc, has been developed which can simultaneously invert for the locations and origin times of the hypocenters and the velocity structure, from the arrival times of local earthquakes. Moreover, it can invert for layer boundary depths, such as Moho depths, which can be well constrained by the Pm and Pn phases. For this purpose, the package was developed to take into account reflected phases, e.g., the Pm phase. The speed of the inversion is acceptable due to the use of optimized matrix calculations. The package has been used to re-locate the Lushan earthquake series which occurred in Sichuan, China, from April 20 to April 22, 2013. The results obtained with the package show that the Lushan earthquake series defines the dip of the Guankou fault, on which most of the series occurred, to be 39° toward the NW. Further, the surface projection of the Lushan earthquake series is consistent with the regional tectonic strike which is about N45° E.

The Yecheng-Shiquanhe profile runs over the western Tibetan Plateau from the south margin of the Tarim Basin, crossing the west Kunlun orogeny, to the east of Karakorum. The authors applied body waves to 3-dimensional inversion of travel time residuals and outlined the deep tectonic pattern of the northwestern Tibetan Plateau. An image was obtained, showing that the Tarim lithosphere is subducted southwards underneath the west Kunlun orogeny at an angle of 40° and a depth of 280 km. Surface structures are well expressed in the image and can be further traced in deeper levels. The prominent finding is that the Gozha Fault and Karakax Fault are likely to join together beyond a depth of ~200 km, which is the very zone of active seismicity.

The Eastern Guangxi area locates in the southwestern part of the transition zone between Yangtze and Cathaysia blocks, which is an important region because the boundary between two blocks probablycrosses there. We determined LA-ICPMS U-Pb ages for detrital zircons extracted from three sandstone samples in the Sinian-Cambrian strata in this region. The resulting ages are in the range of the Archeozoic and Neoproterozoic, with three notable concentrates at 991 Ma, 974 Ma, and 964 Ma, all of which are coeval to the Grenvillian magmatic activity. The new age distribution is similar to the data reported in the Precambrian strata of the adjacent southwestern Cathaysia Block, suggesting that most of our detrital zircons are likely derived from the Cathaysia Block. Combined with others＇ research, we are more inclined to accept the opinion that there was not an ocean basin between the two blocks during the Sinian-Cambrian period in Eastern Guangxi area if the timing of collision is the Early Neoproterzoic. But if the timing of collision is the Early Paleozoic, we conclude that Luzhai uplift（i.e., the uplift between Guilin-Yongfu faultand Lipu fault） beyond the west of Dayaoshan regoin might be one part of southwestern sedimentation boundary of Cathaysia Block and Yangtze Block. We also get a few of detrital zircons with ages of ~590 Ma which probably sourced from northeastern Gondwana and 13 detrital zircons with over 3 000 Ma U-Pb ages which record the early formation of the earth.

Current blood-based approach for gout diagnosis can be of low sensitivity and hysteretic. Here via a 68-member cohort of 33 healthy and 35 diseased individuals, we reported that the intestinal microbiota of gout patients are highly distinct from healthy individuals in both organismal and functional structures. In gout, Bacteroides caccae and Bacteroides xylanisolvens are enriched yet Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum depleted. The established reference microbial gene catalogue for gout revealed disorder in purine degradation and butyric acid biosynthesis in gout patients. In an additional 15-member validation-group, a diagnosis model via 17 gout-associated bacteria reached 88.9% accuracy, higher than the blood-uric-acid based approach. Intestinal microbiota of gout are more similar to those of type-2 diabetes than to liver cirrhosis, whereas depletion of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and reduced butyrate biosynthesis are shared in each of the metabolic syndromes. Thus the Microbial Index of Gout was proposed as a novel, sensitive and non-invasive strategy for diagnosing gout via fecal microbiota.