Goodbye Rocky Mountains... | 
...Hello Sichuan basin (large ellipse; the small ellipse is the study area). The 180 000 sq. km Sichuan basin is a composite foreland basin to the Longmenshan (i.e. the first rise to Tibet, in the northwest), the Qinling terrane of the North China block (to the northeast), and the Yangtze fold-and-thrust belt (to the southeast) | 
The study area in the northwestern basin (red square), amongst others, hosts Upper Triassic flysch deposited in fluvial lacustrine environments in the Tibetan flexural foredeep.
Location map from Chen and Wilson (JSG, 1996, Vol. 18, p.413-430). |
The flysch was derived from the southeastward progressing Longmenshan nappes of Indosinian age (Late Triassic: 227 to 206 Ma), related to the collision between Tibet and the western margin of the Sichuan carbonate platform.
This picture: The Longmenshan, the first rise to Tibet, as seen from Jiangyou, the work destination in the Sichuan basin (160 km to the northeast of the provincial capital Chengdu). | 
Southeastward nappe emplacement re-commenced and specific faults were re-activated during the well-known Tertiary collision of India and Eurasia, but no Tertiary foredeep developed.
This picture: Zooming in on the Longmenshan. | 
The Sichuan basin is China’s largest producing gas basin with 245 TCF reserves identified. Reservoir rocks are Carboniferous to Middle Triassic carbonates (75%) and the Upper Triassic clastic rocks (25%).
This picture: Head of abandoned gas well in vegetable garden. |
The CTG/SGTD's secretary/webmaster took to the foredeep in order to look at fracture permeability of the clastic rocks in drill core and outcrop. This was a good opportunity to supply the CTG/SGTD website with both geological and cultural-geographical material. Emphasis is put here on the latter. | 
The price of oil: PetroChina is the largest fuel company in China. Unfiltered coal power in the background. | 
Overground gas pipeline, Jiangyou. Compressed natural gas is widely used in cars. |
Idyllic Sichuan landscape with Longmenshan in background, Jiangyou. | 
Two major fracture sets are evident in these Upper Triassic sandstones, Guangyuan. | 
Polymictic Upper Triassic conglomerate, recycled as debris flow (well rounded but poorly sorted), Guangyuan. |
Qianfuya - 1000 Buddha rock, Guangyuan: 7000 buddhas carved in Lower to Middle Jurassic sandstone. | 
Qianfuya - 1000 Buddha rock. | 
Inclined bedding in Buddha. Scale is in centimetres. Qianfuya - 1000 Buddha rock. |
Altar in Qianfuya. | 
Saturday street scene in Sichuan's 11.3 Mio capital Chengdu: the bland flavour of capitalism. | 
Panda bear in Chengdu's "Giant Panda Breeding Facility". |
Rex-Murphy-like bronze mask from 4900 year-old Shu kingdom, Sanxingdui near Chengdu. | 
Changing society: small red star smothered by large advertisements, Jiangyou. | 
Apartment buildings, Jiangyou: Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy (Mao Tse-Tung). |
Street scene at the outskirts of Jiangyou. | 
Hello Taxi. | 
THE END.
We welcome your visual contributions to this website. Maybe, you want to present your work on lineations, which appears to come spontaneously to the webmaster's mind. |