Lai, Larry Syu-HengYen, Jiun-YeeDorsey, Rebecca J.Horng, Chorng-ShernChi, Wen-RongShea, Kai-Shuan2022-05-032022-05-032022-03Lai, L.SH., Dorsey, R.J., Horng, CS. et al. Extremely rapid up-and-down motions of island arc crust during arc-continent collision. Commun Earth Environ 3, 100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00429-2https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00429-2https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2710810 pagesMountain building and the rock cycle often involve large vertical crustal motions, but their rates and timescales in unmetamorphosed rocks remain poorly understood. We utilize high-resolution magneto-biostratigraphy and backstripping analysis of marine deposits in an active arc-continent suture zone of eastern Taiwan to document short cycles of vertical crustal oscillations. A basal unconformity formed on Miocene volcanic arc crust in an uplifting forebulge starting ~6 Ma, followed by rapid foredeep subsidence at 2.3–3.2 mm yr−1 (~3.4–0.5 Ma) in response to oceanward-migrating flexural wave. Since ~0.8–0.5 Ma, arc crust has undergone extremely rapid (~9.0–14.4 mm yr−1) uplift to form the modern Coastal Range during transpressional strain. The northern sector may have recently entered another phase of subsidence related to a subduction polarity reversal. These transient vertical crustal motions are under-detected by thermochronologic methods, but are likely characteristic of continental growth by arc accretion over geologic timescales.enCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USPalaeomagnetismSedimentologyTectonicsStratigraphyArticle