The Pamir plateau protrudes ~300 km between the Tajik- and Tarim-basinlithosphere of Central Asia. We present a new local-seismicity catalog, a focal-mechanism catalog, and a P-wave velocity model of the of the collision system between the Pamir plateau and the Tarim basin. The data suggest a south-dipping Asian slab that overturns in its easternmost segment. The largest principal stress at depth acts normal on the slab and is orientated parallel to the plate convergence direction. In front (south) of the Asian slab, a volume of mantle with elevated velocities and lined by weak seismicity constitutes the postulated Indian mantle indenter.

The data set consists of an earthquake catalog, an earthquake focal mechanism catalog and a subsurface P-wave velocity model of the central and eastern Pamir plateau and the adjacent north-western Tarim basin; between 36.8–40.0 °N and 72.2–78.0 °E. It was collected to identify the deep tectonic structures that determine the lithospheric architecture of the Pamir plateau. Earthquakes were recorded by two temporary seismic deployments. Earthquakes that occurred between 1st August 2008 and 6th June 2010 were primarily recorded by the TIPAGE network (Yuan et al., 2008); those, between 3rd August 2015 and 23rd June 2017 by the East Pamir and Sarez aftershock networks (Yuan et al., 2018a, b).

The earthquake catalog contains 1,493 seismic events at depth >50 km. They were localized in the present 3-D velocity model. Some events were re-located with hypoDD. The focal mechanism catalog consists of double-couple fault-slip parameters for 38 events, 29 of which are newly determined using the HASH algorithm and 9 are moment tensors from Kufner et al. (2016). The P wave-velocity model has been determined using simulps from 2,264 seismic events with well-constrained P- and S-wave arrivals. It is parameterized as velocity gradients between nodes with a horizontal and vertical spacing of 40 and 15 km, respectively. Unresolved nodes were masked using a checkerboard resolution test. The full description of the methods is provided in the data description file.