The south-central Tibetan Plateau(TP)occurred rapid exhumation during Cretaceous-Paleocene,followed by astable and slow exhumation rate since early Eocene1,2.When and how the northern TP wasexhumed,however,remain ambiguous.The Hoh Xil Basin(HXB)is the largest Cenozoic sedimentary basin inthe north TP.Here we present detrital apatite and zircon(U-Th)/He ages and forward modelings fromsedimentary rocks of both the western and eastern HXB.These results,combined with regional geologicalconstraints,indicate that at least3km and2.2km of material in the eastern and western HXB have beeneroded during25-22Ma,respectively.The Late Oligocene-Early Miocene of uplift in the northern TP ismuch younger than Cretaceous-Eocene uplift of the south-central TP,which clearly reveals episodicexhumation and northward growth of the TP.Crustal shortening3and southward subduction of the Asianlithosphere beneath the HXB4are the two major contributions for this stage of uplift and exhumation in theHXB.