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Ongoing India–Eurasia collision predominantly driven by Sumatra–Java slab pull

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 909–915 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Continued India–Eurasia convergence since the early Palaeogene has led to the formation of the Tibetan Plateau. Yet the primary driving mechanisms of this protracted convergence remain debated, limiting our understanding of continental collision dynamics. Here we provide a holistic quantification of various driving forces to this convergence by integrating high-resolution, plate-boundary-resolving global convection models with observational constraints. Whereas different forces can produce the observed plate motion, we show that the primary driving force can be definitively constrained when Indo-Australian intraplate stress and strain rates are used as constraints in addition to plate motions. Specifically, we identify that the position of the transition in stress orientation within the Indo-Australian plate is highly sensitive to the relative strength of plate-boundary forces. When the plate motion and this stress-orientation transition are fit simultaneously, we find slab pull from Sumatra–Java subduction is the predominant driving force of India–Eurasia convergence with continental collision exerting an overall resisting force and rule out mantle basal drag playing more than a secondary role. We suggest slab pull from adjacent subduction zones has been the primary driver of the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau since its onset and so this may be an exceptional event in Earth’s history.

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Fig. 1: Geodynamic setting of the India–Eurasia collision zone and the neighbouring regions.
Fig. 2: Predicted and observed plate velocities, plate-boundary forces and basal drags from models.
Fig. 3: Comparison of the observed and predicted orientations of the most compressive horizontal principal stresses.
Fig. 4: Schematic illustration of the preferred model for the mechanisms of India–Eurasia convergence and the deformation of the Indo-Australia Plate.

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Data availability

The World Stress Map data can be accessed at www.world-stress-map.org/. The focal mechanism solution data from International Seismological Centre can be accessed at www.isc.ac.uk. Data generated for this study are available on Dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d7wm37qd4 (ref. 62). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The adaptive nonlinear Stokes solver (Rhea) and scripts related to force calculations are available on Github at https://github.com/johannrudi/rhea. The code and software used to make the figures can be downloaded at www.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt/ and www.paraview.org/. The Matlab script (stress2grid) used to estimate mean SHmax orientations on a regular grid can be downloaded at www.world-stress-map.org/software.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China 2023YFF0803200 (J.H.) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 42174106, 92155307 and 92355302 (J.H.). Q.Z. is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China 2023YFF0803404.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Qunfan Zheng, Jiashun Hu, Xueyang Bao & Yingjie Yang

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Geophysical High-resolution Imaging Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Jiashun Hu

  3. Seismological Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Michael Gurnis

  4. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ling Chen

  5. Key Laboratory of Computational Geodynamics, College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yaolin Shi

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Contributions

J.H. designed the study and constructed the preliminary model. Q.Z. systematically carried out the numerical tests and performed the force calculation. M.G. provided expertise to the geodynamic interpretation. L.C., Y.S., X.B. and Y.Y. contributed to the seismic data analysis and interpretation. All authors participated in result interpretation and paper preparation.

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Correspondence to Jiashun Hu.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Fabio Capitanio, Joao Duarte and Andrew Parsons for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Stefan Lachowycz, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 SHmax records and mean orientations for the Indo-Australian plate.

(a) Data records of SHmax. The blue bars indicate SHmax orientations from the World Stress Map 201638, while the brown bars represent focal mechanism solution data from the ISC for the period from January 2016 to October 2023. (b) Mean SHmax orientations on a regular grid of 1.5° computed from the data shown in (a). The inferred position of the SOT is indicated by the magenta dashed line.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Viscosity fields in geodynamic models.

(a) Details of the Indian subduction beneath the Tibetan Plateau along the profile AA’ in Fig. 1a, inferred from Chen et al.31. (b) Profile with the same location as in (a) but for the structure inferred from Wang et al.32. (c) Details of the Sumatra-Java subduction along the profile BB’ in Fig. 1a. (d) Same profile in (c) but showing the adaptively refined mesh in the region as indicated by the box in (c).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Diagram of the calculation method for plate-boundary forces.

(a) Division of boundaries where plate-boundary forces (B1-B6; red and black lines) are computed. The effective plate-boundary forces and basal drag are calculated at the position marked by the yellow and white stars, respectively. The background color indicates the thickness of the lithosphere, which is defined by an isotherm that is 140 K cooler than the ambient mantle. (b) A sketch showing the calculation of plate-boundary forces. Taking the B1 boundary in (a) as an example, this boundary is hypothetically divided into four great circle arcs A1-A4. Bold arrows n1-n4 denote the normals of each great circle arc. Forces along plate motion are computed, and further used to compute the torque. Dimensions are not to scale.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Effective ridge push for the Central and Southeast Indian Ridge.

(a) ridge push calculated from the analytical formula Eq. (6). Grey lines indicate the depth contours of plate thickness with an interval of 10 km. (b) ridge push calculated from the dynamic pressure of Model 1. The positions of the lines are the same as the depth contours in (a), and the color of the lines represents the line force within the 10 km depth interval.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Predicted plate motion and the second invariant of strain rate tensor from Model 1.

Red arrows show velocities from Model 1; black arrows show velocities from Argus et al.55.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Predicted velocity and viscosity fields at 300 km depth for Model 1 and Model 6.

Results of numerical simulations for Model 1 and Model 6 are shown in (a) and (b), respectively. Black arrows indicate velocities in cm/year.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Predicted plate motions for models.

(a–f) Results of numerical simulations for Model 1 (a), Model 2 (b), Model 3 (c), Model 4 (d), Model 5 (e), and Model 6 (f). In each model, the red arrows represent the velocities predicted by geodynamic models; the black arrows represent the velocities from Argus et al.55. Blue lines show the plate boundaries taken from Bird 200363.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 8 Predicted second invariant of the strain rate tensor.

(a–f) Results of numerical simulations for Model 1 (a), Model 2 (b), Model 3 (c), Model 4 (d), Model 5 (e), and Model 6 (f). Dashed lines indicate the inferred SOT in each model.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 9 Predictions of basal drag beneath the Indian plate and line forces at plate boundaries and inside the plate for Model 1 and Model 5.

Results of numerical simulations for Model 1 and Model 5 are shown in (a) and (b), respectively. Forces are computed from the deviatoric stress. All forces are directed toward the plate motions.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

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Zheng, Q., Hu, J., Gurnis, M. et al. Ongoing India–Eurasia collision predominantly driven by Sumatra–Java slab pull. Nat. Geosci. 18, 909–915 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01771-8

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