Slab detachment

The uncritical use of the slab-detachment model to explain disparate observations of magmatism, uplift and exhumation in continental collision zones has been criticised.

Slab tears

Detachment initiates at a particular point on the slab and will then propagate laterally along the descending slab, forming a slab tear. The propagation of the detachment will be accompanied by lateral migration of both the associated uplift and the magmatism. Such laterally propagating tears have been recognised from several collision zones, such as the Hindu Kush part of the Himalayan Belt. The Tertiary magmatism in the Alps observed along the Insubric Line has been argued to result from a rapidly propagating slab tear following continental collision and the initiation of slab breakoff.