The chronology of intermontane-basin development in the northwestern Himalaya and the evolution of the Northwest Syntaxis

The Northwest Syntaxis delineates a complex zone where the northwesterly trending Himalayan Ranges meet the northeasterly trending Hindu Kush and Indus Kohistan Ranges. The southern margin of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan collisional belt is delineated by a series of imbricate thrusts that transect the northern edge of the modern Indo-Gangetic foredeep. The Kashmir and Peshawar Basins are embedded in this still-developing thrust belt and are symmetrically oriented about the Northwest Syntaxis.Consideration of chronologic, stratigraphic, structural, and geophysical data from the syntaxial zone permits the construction of a model for intermontane-basin development and the evolution of the Northwest Syntaxis during the Late Cenozoic. The formation of the Kashmir and Peshawar Basins results from the transfer from the north of the locus of thrusting and uplift to the southern margins of the basins. During the Pliocene, the morphotectonic emergence of the ancestral Pir Panjal and Attock Ranges along the southern margins of the two basins coincides with changes in the patterns of sedimentation and deformation both within the basins and in the bounding foredeep to the south. Contrasting styles of tectonic deformation on opposite sides of the Syntaxis are interpreted as a response to differences in the strength of sediment-basement coupling across the Syntaxis.