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. 2020 Nov 24;117(47):29487-29494.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2009039117. Epub 2020 Nov 4.

Paleocene latitude of the Kohistan-Ladakh arc indicates multistage India-Eurasia collision

Craig R Martin  1 , Oliver Jagoutz  2 , Rajeev Upadhyay  3 , Leigh H Royden  2 , Michael P Eddy  4 , Elizabeth Bailey  5 , Claire I O Nichols  2 , Benjamin P Weiss  2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; crm7@mit.edu.
  • 2 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
  • 3 Department of Geology, Kumaun University, 263 002 Nainital, India.
  • 4 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.
  • 5 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.

Paleocene latitude of the Kohistan-Ladakh arc indicates multistage India-Eurasia collision

Craig R Martin et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
. 2020 Nov 24;117(47):29487-29494.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2009039117. Epub 2020 Nov 4.

Authors

Craig R Martin  1 , Oliver Jagoutz  2 , Rajeev Upadhyay  3 , Leigh H Royden  2 , Michael P Eddy  4 , Elizabeth Bailey  5 , Claire I O Nichols  2 , Benjamin P Weiss  2

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; crm7@mit.edu.
  • 2 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
  • 3 Department of Geology, Kumaun University, 263 002 Nainital, India.
  • 4 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.
  • 5 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.

Abstract

We report paleomagnetic data showing that an intraoceanic Trans-Tethyan subduction zone existed south of the Eurasian continent and north of the Indian subcontinent until at least Paleocene time. This system was active between 66 and 62 Ma at a paleolatitude of 8.1 ± 5.6 °N, placing it 600-2,300 km south of the contemporaneous Eurasian margin. The first ophiolite obductions onto the northern Indian margin also occurred at this time, demonstrating that collision was a multistage process involving at least two subduction systems. Collisional events began with collision of India and the Trans-Tethyan subduction zone in Late Cretaceous to Early Paleocene time, followed by the collision of India (plus Trans-Tethyan ophiolites) with Eurasia in mid-Eocene time. These data constrain the total postcollisional convergence across the India-Eurasia convergent zone to 1,350-2,150 km and limit the north-south extent of northwestern Greater India to <900 km. These results have broad implications for how collisional processes may affect plate reconfigurations, global climate, and biodiversity.

Keywords: Himalaya; India; Neotethys; intraoceanic arc; paleomagnetism.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

The first panel is an…

Fig. 1.

The first panel is an overview map of tectonic structure of the Karakoram–Himalaya–Tibet…

Fig. 1.
The first panel is an overview map of tectonic structure of the Karakoram–Himalaya–Tibet orogenic system. Blue represents India, red represents Eurasia, and the Kohistan–Ladakh arc (KLA) is shown in gray. The different shades of blue highlight the deformed margin of the Indian plate that has been uplifted to form the Himalayan belt, and the zones of darker red within the Eurasian plate highlight the Eurasian continental arc batholith. Thick black lines denote the suture zones which separate Indian and Eurasian terranes. The tectonic summary panels illustrate the two conflicting collision models and their differing predictions of the location of the Kohistan–Ladakh arc. India is shown in blue, Eurasia is shown in red, and the other nearby continents are shown in gray. Active plate boundaries are shown with black lines, and recently extinct boundaries are shown with gray lines. Subduction zones are shown with triangular tick marks.
Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

( A ) Orthographic projection…

Fig. 2.

( A ) Orthographic projection diagrams showing AF and thermal demagnetization of three…

Fig. 2.
(A) Orthographic projection diagrams showing AF and thermal demagnetization of three representative samples KH02-B, KH25-J, and conglomerate clast KH12–C23. Data are presented in geographic coordinates; closed symbols represent north–south–east–west projections, and open symbols represent up–down–east–west projections. Interpretations are shown with colored arrows: each arrow reflects a direction vector corresponding to components inferred from PCA. LCT = low-coercivity/low-temperature overprint, HT1 = high-temperature magnetite, HT2 = high-temperature hematite. (B) Stereographic equal-area projections showing HT1 directions for each sample (gray circles) and their site-means (red squares) with associated 95% confidence angles (black ellipses). Data are presented in geographic coordinates (Left) and after tilt correction (Right). Upward directions are denoted with open symbols, and downward directions are denoted with filled symbols.
Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.

Stratigraphic column of upper ∼1,000…

Fig. 3.

Stratigraphic column of upper ∼1,000 m of Khardung volcanics where we collected paleomagnetic…

Fig. 3.
Stratigraphic column of upper ∼1,000 m of Khardung volcanics where we collected paleomagnetic and geochronology samples. Rock types are denoted by the color of the blocks (gray = rhyolite, yellow = volcaniclastic, light brown = conglomerate, dark brown = tuff/ash, red = intermediate dike), the horizontal extent of the blocks represents the relative erosive prominence of the units in the field, and breaks in the section reflect small areas with no exposure. The site-mean declinations and inclinations are plotted against stratigraphic height, and our four U-Pb ages (2σ external uncertainty) are shown as red lines; up arrows indicate maximum depositional ages. The gray shaded regions show the correlation of the magnetic reversals in the sequence to the documented C29n, C28r, C28n, C27r, and C26r chrons which have been plotted with their age in the right-hand column (28).
Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

( A ) Paleolatitude of…

Fig. 4.

( A ) Paleolatitude of the TTSZ constrained at the KLA (this study)…

Fig. 4.
(A) Paleolatitude of the TTSZ constrained at the KLA (this study) and the Burma Terrane (18) compared to paleomagnetic plate reconstructions of Indian and Eurasian terranes (4, 14) and the predicted location of the TTSZ (9) throughout the closure of the Neotethys ocean. (B) Paleogeographic map of the location of Kohistan–Ladakh arc relative to India and Eurasia in the Paleocene. The position of the Kohistan–Ladakh arc is reconstructed using our paleomagnetic pole from the Khardung volcanics, and the locations of Indian and Eurasian tectonic blocks are from the plate reconstruction of van Hinsbergen et al. (14). (C) Cross-section illustration showing the plate tectonic configuration of the India–TTSZ–Eurasia collision at 80 Ma, 61.6–66.1 Ma (constrained by our data), 50–60 Ma, and 40–45 Ma.
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References

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    1. Torsvik T. H., et al. , Phanerozoic polar wander, palaeogeography and dynamics. Earth Sci. Rev. 114, 325–368 (2012).
    1. Patzelt A., Li H., Wang J., Appel E., Palaeomagnetism of Cretaceous to tertiary sediments from southern Tibet: Evidence for the extent of the northern margin of India prior to the collision with Eurasia. Tectonophysics 259, 259–284 (1996).

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