Himalayan Tectonics: A Modern Synthesis
CONTAINS OPEN ACCESS
The Himalaya–Karakoram–Tibet mountain belt resulted from Cenozoic collision of India and Asia and is frequently used as the type example of a continental collision orogenic belt. The last quarter of a century has seen the publication of a remarkably detailed dataset relevant to the evolution of this belt. Detailed fieldwork backed up by state-of-the-art structural analysis, geochemistry, mineral chemistry, igneous and metamorphic petrology, isotope chemistry, sedimentology and geophysics produced a wide-ranging archive of data-rich scientific papers. The rationale for this book is to provide a coherent overview of these datasets in addressing the evolution of the mountain ranges we see today.
This volume comprises 21 specially invited review papers on the Himalaya, Kohistan arc, Tibet, the Karakoram and Pamir ranges. These papers span the history of Himalayan research, chronology of the collision, stratigraphy, magmatic and metamorphic processes, structural geology and tectonics, seismicity, geophysics, and the evolution of the Indian monsoon. This landmark set of papers should underpin the next 25 years of Himalayan research.
History of subduction erosion and accretion recorded in the Yarlung Suture Zone, southern Tibet Available to Purchase
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Published:October 08, 2019
Abstract
The history of pre-Cretaceous subduction accretion and erosion along the Yarlung Suture Zone remains poorly constrained. We present new geological mapping along c. 200 km of the suture zone, 4881 detrital zircon U–Pb ages, and sandstone petrography for the subduction complex and Tethyan Himalayan strata. We provide the first documentation of the c. 158 Ma marine Xiazha Formation, which contains volcanic clasts of intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks and ooids with both calcareous and volcanic cores. Based on our new data and synthesis of published data, we present a model in which the Zedong arc represents the southwards migration of the Gangdese arc onto a forearc ophiolite that was generated proximal to the southern Asian margin during Neotethyan slab rollback at 160–150 Ma. This contrasts with previous suggestions that the Zedong arc, Yarlung ophiolites and subduction complex rocks developed above an intra-oceanic subduction zone thousands of kilometres south of Asia. Although Gangdese arc magmatism began in the Middle Triassic, the only forearc units preserved are 160 Ma until collision between the Xigaze forearc basin and Tethyan Himalaya at c. 59 Ma. This suggests that almost all pre-Cretaceous forearc assemblages have been removed by subduction erosion at the trench.
- absolute age
- accretion
- Asia
- basins
- China
- Cretaceous
- deformation
- erosion
- Far East
- faults
- fore-arc basins
- Indus-Yarlung Zangbo suture zone
- Jurassic
- Lhasa Block
- Lower Cretaceous
- magmatism
- matrix
- melange
- Mesozoic
- ophiolite
- petrography
- plate tectonics
- provenance
- siliciclastics
- stratigraphic units
- subduction
- suture zones
- tectonics
- tectonostratigraphic units
- Tethys
- U/Pb
- Upper Cretaceous
- Xizang China
- magmatic arcs
- Xigaze Basin
- Bainang Terrane
- Kailas Formation
- Rongmawa Formation
- Luogangcuo Formation
- Xiazha Formation