The cheyenne belt: analysis of a proterozoic suture in Southern Wyoming

The Cheyenne belt of southeastern Wyoming is a major shear zone which separates Archean rocks of the Wyoming province to the north from 1800-1600 Ma old eugeoclinal gneisses to the south. Miogeoclinal rocks (2500-2000 Ma old) unconformably overlie Archean basement immediately north of the shear zone and were deposited under transgressive conditions along a rift-formed continental margin. Intrusive tholeiitic sills and dikes are interpreted as rift-related intrusions and a date of 2000 Ma on a felsic differentiate of these intrusions gives the approximate age of rifting. There are no known post-2000 Ma felsic intrusions north of the Cheyenne belt.Volcanogenic gneisses and abundant syntectonic calc-alkaline plutons of the southern terrane are interpreted as island are volcanic and plutonic rocks. The volcanics are a bimodal basalt-rhyolite assemblage. Plutons include large gabbroic complexes and quartz diorite (1780 Ma), syntectonic granitoids (1730-1630 Ma) and post-tectonic anorthosite and granite (1400 Ma). There is no evidence for Archean crust south of the Cheyenne belt.Structural data (thrusts in the miogeoclinal rocks, vertical stretching lineations, and the same fold geometries north and south of the shear zone) suggest that juxtaposition of the two terranes took place by thrusting of the southern terrane (island arc) over the northern terrane (craton and miogeocline), probably as a continuation of the south-dipping subduction which generated calc-alkaline plutons of the southern terrane. A metamorphic discontinuity across the shear zone, with greenschist facies rocks to the north and upper amphibolite facies rocks and migmatites to the south, also suggests thrusting of the southern terrane (deeper crustal levels) over the northern terrane (shallower levels).The Cheyenne belt may be a deeply-eroded master decollement, perhaps analogous to a ramp in the master decollement in the southern Appalachians. This interpretation of the Cheyenne belt as a Proterozoic suture zone provides an explanation for the geologic, geochronologic, geophysical, metallogenic, and metamorphic discontinuities across the shear zone.     

TECTONIC TRANSFER ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF PAMIR

TECTONIC TRANSFER ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF PAMIR     

Evidence for Neotethys rooted within the Vardar suture zone from the Voras Massif, northernmost Greece

Three conflicting models are currently proposed for the location and tectonic setting of the Eurasian continental margin and adjacent Tethys ocean in the Balkan region during Mesozoic–Early Tertiary time. Model 1 places the Eurasian margin within the Rhodope zone relatively close to the Moesian platform. A Tethyan oceanic basin was located to the south bordering a large “Serbo-Pelagonian” microcontinent. Model 2 correlates an integral “Serbo-Pelagonian” continental unit with the Eurasian margin and locates the Tethys further southwest. Model 3 envisages the Pelagonian zone and the Serbo-Macedonian zone as conjugate continental units separated by a Tethyan ocean that was sutured in Early Tertiary time to create the Vardar zone of northern Greece and former Yugoslavia. These published alternatives are tested in this paper based on a study of the tectono-stratigraphy of a completely exposed transect located in the Voras Mountains of northernmost Greece. The outcrop extends across the Vardar zone, from the Pelagonian zone in the west to the Serbo-Macedonian zone in the east.Within the Voras Massif, six east-dipping imbricate thrust sheets are recognised. Of these, Units 1–4 correlate with the regional Pelagonian zone in the west (and related Almopias sub-zone). By contrast, Units 5–6 show a contrasting tectono-stratigraphy and correlate with the Paikon Massif and the Serbo-Macedonian zone to the east. These units form a stack of thrust sheets, with Unit 1 at the base and Unit 6 at the top. Unstacking these thrust sheets places ophiolitic units between the Pelagonian zone and the Serbo-Macedonian zone, as in Model 3. Additional implications are, first, that the Paikon Massif cannot be seen as a window of Pelagonian basement, as in Model 1, and, secondly, Jurassic andesitic volcanics of the Paikon Massif locally preserve a gneissose continental basement, ruling out a recently suggested origin as an intra-oceanic arc.We envisage that the Almopias (Vardar) ocean rifted in Triassic time, followed by seafloor spreading. The Almopias ocean was consumed beneath the Serbo-Macedonian margin in Jurassic time, generating subduction-related arc volcanism in the Paikon Massif and related units. Ophiolites were emplaced onto the Pelagonian margin in the west and covered by Late Jurassic (pre-Kimmeridgian) conglomerates. Other ophiolitic rocks formed within the Vardar zone (Ano Garefi ophiolite, Unit 4) in latest Jurassic–Early Cretaceous time and were not deformed until Early Tertiary time. The Vardar zone finally sutured in the Early Tertiary creating the present imbricate thrust structure of the Voras Mountains.     

库车新生代构造性质和变形时间

库车构造位于南天山古生代碰撞造山带之南,为塔里木盆地最北的一个构造带。它自北而南可分为边缘逆冲（ 隐伏构造楔） 、斯的克背斜带、北部线性背斜带、拜城盆地、南部背斜带。每个背斜带又包含有若干逆冲断层相关褶皱,它们是断层转折褶皱、断层传播褶皱、滑脱褶皱、断层传播 滑脱混生褶皱、双重逆冲构造、突发构造、三角带构造。底部逆冲断层向南变浅,堆叠逆冲岩席向南变薄,总体上形成一个向南的逆冲构造楔。逆冲断层在斯的克背斜带侵位最早（２５ Ｍａ） ,在北部线性背斜带为１６９ Ｍａ,拜城盆地中的大宛其背斜为３６ Ｍａ,南部背斜带为５３ Ｍａ（ 北部） 和１８ Ｍａ（ 南部） ,变形作用向南变新。库车构造是印 藏板块碰撞的内陆构造响应,是二叠纪前陆盆地复活而成的再生前陆盆地变形带     

Southern Granulite Terrain, South of the Palghat-Cauvery Shear Zone: Implications for India-Madagascar Connection

The present paper correlates the southern Madgascar terrain, south of the Ranotsara shear with the granulite terrain of southern India, occurring south of the Palghat-Cauvery (P-C) shear zone. Both the terrains have witnessed high temperature to ultra high temperature granulite metamorphism at 550 Ma and are traversed by shear zones and deep crustal faults. The 550 Ma old granulite terrains of Madagascar and southern India have similar lithologies, in particular, sapphirine bearing pelitic assemblages. Graphite deposits and gem occurrences are common to both these terrains. The 550 Ma old southern granulite terrain of southern India comprises of different blocks, the Madurai and the Kerala Khondalite belt, but all the blocks have similar lithologies with pelite—calc silicate rocks inter-banded with two pyroxene granulite bodies. These lithologies occur amidst an essentially charnockitic terrain. The protolith ages of the southern granulite terrain, south of the P-C shear zone ranges between 2400–2100 Ma. The terrain as a whole has witnessed the 550 Ma old granulite event. The granulite metamorphism took place under temperatures of 800–1000°C and at pressures of 9.5 to 5 Kbar.The source of heat for the high temperature granulite event of the southern Madagascar terrain has been linked to advective heat transfer along mantle deep faults. The source for the high temperature granulite metamorphism for the southern granulite terrain may be attributed to high temperature carbonatite and alkaline intrusives in an extensional setting which followed an initial crustal thickening.Many workers have linked Madagascar to southern India by connecting the Ranotsara shear either to the P-C shear zone or to the Achankovil shear zone, further south. The important factor is the lithologies of the Madagascar terrain, south of Ranotsara shear zone and the 550 Ma. old southern Indian granulite terrain are similar in many aspects. It will be more appropriate to link the Ranotsara shear to the curvilinear lineament bounding the Anaimalai-Kodaikanal ranges and which merges with the southern margin of the P-C shear zone.However, north of the Ranotsara shear/fault, the northern Madagascar terrain comprises of a dominant Itremo sequence (< 1850 Ma) and 780 Ma old calc-alkaline intrusives. The latter have similarities with that of Aravallis and the Sirohi, Malani sequences occurring further north east. The Rajasthan terrain has witnessed igneous intrusive activity at 1000–800 Ma. If we can broaden the area of investigations and include the above areas, the Madagascar-India connection can be better understood.     

Tethyan and Indian subduction viewed from the Himalayan high- to ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks

The Himalayan range is one of the best documented continent-collisional belts and provides a natural laboratory for studying subduction processes. High-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure rocks with origins in a variety of protoliths occur in various settings: accretionary wedge, oceanic subduction zone, subducted continental margin and continental collisional zone. Ages and locations of these high-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure rocks along the Himalayan belt allow us to evaluate the evolution of this major convergent zone.

(1) Cretaceous (80–100 Ma) blueschists and possibly amphibolites in the Indus Tsangpo Suture zone represent an accretionary wedge developed during the northward subduction of the Tethys Ocean beneath the Asian margin. Their exhumation occurred during the subduction of the Tethys prior to the collision between the Indian and Asian continents.

(2) Eclogitic rocks with unknown age are reported at one location in the Indus Tsangpo Suture zone, east of the Nanga Parbat syntaxis. They may represent subducted Tethyan oceanic lithosphere.

(3) Ultrahigh-pressure rocks on both sides of the western syntaxis (Kaghan and Tso Morari massifs) formed during the early stage of subduction/exhumation of the Indian northern margin at the time of the Paleocene–Eocene boundary.

(4) Granulitized eclogites in the Lesser Himalaya Sequence in southern Tibet formed during the Paleogene underthrusting of the Indian margin beneath southern Tibet, and were exhumed in the Miocene.

These metamorphic rocks provide important constraints on the geometry and evolution of the India–Asia convergent zone during the closure of the Tethys Ocean. The timing of the ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism in the Tso Morari massif indicates that the initial contact between the Indian and Asian continents likely occurred in the western syntaxis at 57 ± 1 Ma. West of the western syntaxis, the Higher Himalayan Crystallines were thinned. Rocks equivalent to the Lesser Himalayan Sequence are present north of the Main Central Thrust. Moreover, the pressure metamorphism in the Kaghan massif in the western part of the syntaxis took place later, 7 m.y. after the metamorphism in the eastern part, suggesting that the geometry of the initial contact between the Indian and Asian continents was not linear. The northern edge of the Indian continent in the western part was 300 to 350 km farther south than the area east of the Nanga Parbat syntaxis. Such “en baionnette” geometry is probably produced by north-trending transform faults that initially formed during the Late Paleozoic to Cretaceous Gondwana rifting. Farther east in the southern Tibet, the collision occurred before 50.6 ± 0.2 Ma. Finally, high-pressure to ultrahigh-pressure rocks in the western Himalaya formed and exhumed in steep subduction compared to what is now shown in tomographic images and seismologic data.     

Initiation of crustal shortening in the Himalaya

New monazite U/Th‐Pb petrochronological data from the Annapurna region of central Nepal outline a protracted thermal history spanning ~ 30 Ma from the early Eocene (c. 48 Ma) to the early Miocene (c. 18 Ma). Rare earth element data collected concomitant with the isotopic analyses are consistent with prograde metamorphism and crustal thickening between ~ 48 and 30 Ma and anatexis between ~ 28 and 18 Ma. The timing of metamorphism recorded in these rocks is consistent with records of crustal shortening derived from ultrahigh‐pressure rocks in the western Himalaya and exhumed metamorphic rocks in southern Tibet. Although previous records of early shortening/metamorphism related to the initial collision of India with Asia are spatially associated with the northern margin of the Indian plate, the ages presented in this study extend that early record south into the main Himalayan range. These new data provide important geological constraints on this early, poorly documented history.     

武夷山北缘断裂带动力学研究

华南武夷山北缘边界被绍兴－兴山－东乡断裂带所限。该断裂带到少保留了三期构造事件的形迹，第一期发生在８００Ｍａ～９００Ｍａ的晚元古代，呈ＮＷ向ＳＥ的区域推覆韧剪变形运动，以构造混杂岩和区域绿片岩相－角闪岩相变质，强烈的褶皱和韧剪变形为特征，对应于古洋盆关闭，华南复合地体与江南岛弧撞焊接过程，第二期发生在４５８Ｍａ～４２１Ｍａ的志留纪，表现为从北向南的韧剪变形运动，伴有左旋走滑韧性剪切，以糜棱岩化和进变质作用为特征．黒云母多变为硅线石。该期变形使第一期构造形迹被强烈选加置换。其动力学背景与闽东南地体朝武夷山的拼贴增生事件有关。第三期属中生代陆内变形，是一种高构造位的左旋走滑脆性剪切，以岩石的破裂和岩块的水平位移为特征．并具转换拉伸性质，导致中生代火山沉积盆地的形成。     

Lithostratigraphy, basin development, base metal deposits, and regional correlations of the Neoproterozoic Nguba and Kundelungu rock successions, central African Copperbelt

The Neoproterozoic Katangan Supergroup comprises a thick sedimentary rock succession subdivided into the Roan, Nguba, and Kundelungu Groups, from bottom to top. Deposition of both Nguba and Kundelungu Groups began with diamictites, the Mwale/Grand Conglomérat and Kyandamu/Petit Conglomérat Formations, respectively, correlated with the 750 Ma Sturtian and (supposedly) 620 Ma Marinoan/Varanger glacial events. The Kaponda, Kakontwe, Kipushi and Lusele Formations are interpreted as cap-carbonates overlying the diamictites. Petrographical features of the Nguba and Kundelungu siliciclastic rocks indicate a proximal facies in the northern areas and a basin open to the south. The carbonate deposits increase southward in the Nguba basin. In the southern region, the Kyandamu Formation contains clasts from the underlying rocks, indicating an exhumation and erosion of these rocks to the south of the basin. It is inferred that this formation deposited in a foreland basin, dating the inversion from extensional to compressional tectonics, and the northward thrusting. Sampwe and Biano sedimentary rocks were deposited in the northernmost foreland basin at the end of the thrusting. The Zn–Pb–Cu and Cu–Ag–Au epigenetic, hypogene deposits occurring in Nguba carbonates and Kundelungu clastic rocks probably originate from hydrothermal resetting and remobilization of pre-existing stratiform base metal mineralisations in the Roan Group.     

青藏高原北缘新构造运动特征

ＮＥＥ向阿尔金主断裂带的新构造运动以左旋压扭性活动为特征，仅西端发育张性构造，并可划分出两期变形，新构造运动强度在时间上自上新世晚期开始至第四纪断裂活动强度增大，在空间上自ＳＷＷ向ＮＥＥ方向断裂活动强度逐渐减弱；柴达木北缘的新构造运动可划分为两期，其主要构造特征表现为向柴达木盆地逆冲的前进式叠瓦道冲带，柴达木盆地第四纪时的北界相对于第三纪时的北界向南迁移了数十公里；河西走廊盆地的新构造运动主要表现为盆地边缘断裂的逆冲兼走滑，盆地接受新生代沉积、盆地内第三系的轴面南倾的褶皱；ＮＥＥ向阿尔金主断裂带与其南侧的ＮＷＷ向断裂带是在统一构造应力场作用下相互协调、同时活动的两组关系紧密的构造带，两者的共同活动构成了断块运动。     

Tectonics of the Caucasus and adjoining regions: implications for the evolution of the Tethys ocean

The evolution of Tethys is analysed on the basis of ophiolitic geology, reconstruction of continental margins, and plate kinematics. The North Anatolian-Minor Caucasian-South Caspian ophiolitic belt is considered to be the major suture of Palaeozoic Tethys, dividing its southern carbonate shelf from the Pontian-Caucasian-Turanian active margin. The Caucasian part of the latter comprises the Transcaucasian island arc, the Great Caucasian small ocean basin, the Great Caucasian island arc and the Precaucasian marginal sea, each characterised by its own magmatic, metamorphic and sedimentary facies association typical of that tectonic environments. The North Anatolian branch of Tethys persisted throughout the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic, whereas eastwards the major oceanic tract shifted south into the Zagros zone.The Northern frame of Mesotethys comprises the Pontain-Caucasian and Nakhichevan-Iranian island arc systems, divided by the Minor Caucasian basin, a relict of Palaeotethys reduced to a narrow northern branch of the Mesozoic ocean. In the late Cretacaous-Palaeogene, the youngest southwestern branch of Tethys separated Taurus-Anatolia from the Arabian shelf. Its ‘old’ northern branches were closed in the Palaeogene. Northward subduction in the South Anatolia-Zagros intracontinental basin triggered Neogene calc-alkaline volcanism in the Pontides, Antolia, Caucasus and Iran.     

Isotopic ages for alkaline igneous rocks,including a 26 Ma ignimbrite,from the Peshawar plain of northern Pakistan and their tectonic implications

New isotopic ages on zircons from rocks of the Peshawar Plain Alkaline Igneous Province (PPAIP) reveal for the first time the occurrence of ignimbritic Cenozoic (Oligocene) volcanism in the Himalaya at 26.7 ± 0.8 Ma. Other new ages confirm that PPAIP rift-related igneous activity was Permian and lasted from ∼290 Ma to ∼250 Ma. Although PPAIP rocks are petrologically and geochemically typical of rifts and have been suggested to be linked to rifting on the Pangea continental margin at the initiation of the Neotethys Ocean, there are no documented rift-related structures mapped in Permian rocks of the Peshawar Plain. We suggest that Permian rift-related structures have been dismembered and/or reactivated during shortening associated with India–Asia collision. Shortening in the area between the Main Mantle Thrust (MMT) and the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) may be indicative of the subsurface northern extension of the Salt Range evaporites. Late Cenozoic sedimentary rocks of the Peshawar Plain deposited during and after Himalayan thrusting occupy a piggy-back basin on top of the thrust belt. Those sedimentary rocks have buried surviving evidence of Permian rift-related structures. Igneous rocks of the PPAIP have been both metamorphosed and deformed during the Himalayan collision and Cenozoic igneous activity, apart from the newly recognized Gohati volcanism, has involved only the intrusion of small cross-cutting granitic bodies concentrated in areas such as Malakand that are close to the MMT. Measurements on Chingalai Gneiss zircons have confirmed the occurrence of 816 ± 70 Ma aged rocks in the Precambrian basement of the Peshawar Plain that are comparable in age to rocks in the Malani igneous province of the Rajasthan platform ∼1000 km to the south.     

New Ar–Ar age constraints on the deformation along the Machaoying fault zone: Implications for Early Cambrian tectonism in the North China Craton

The Machaoying fault zone extends along the southern margin of the North China Craton (NCC) and controlled the regional structures and hydrothermal mineral systems in this area. The fault underwent at least two major deformational phases, as revealed by macro- and micro-structural observations from a well-developed segment of the fault in the Hongzhuang–Baitu area, located south of the Xiong'er Mountains. Early ductile deformation is characterized by thrusting from north to south, which was subsequently overprinted by late brittle faulting. Syntectonic strain shadows of biotite are preserved around rotated porphyroclasts of quartz amygdales in mylonite. The biotite yields a ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar plateau age of 524.9 ± 1.9 Ma, which is interpreted as the time of regional thrusting along the Machaoying fault zone. The thrusting may be temporally correlated with an Early Cambrian discontinuity in sedimentation observed in the rocks sequences of the NCC, suggesting a compressional regime in this area and a craton-wide tectonic event. Many 540–500 Ma tectonic events have been previously identified in the Qinling–Qilian–Kunlun Orogenic Belt of central China and in massifs in northeastern China, both of which surround the NCC, and some of these were interpreted to be associated with assembly of Gondwana. However, paleomagnetic data indicate that the NCC was unlikely to have been connected with Gondwana in the Early Cambrian and thus our new biotite date cannot record deformation along the Gondwanan margin. Dating of K-feldspar from a quartz–K-feldspar vein formed along one of the brittle faults of the Machaoying fault zone yields a much younger ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar plateau age of 119.5 ± 0.7 Ma. This is a minimum age for the brittle deformation along the southern margin of the NCC, which also overlaps the age of widespread gold and molybdenum mineralization in the region.     

Structural and metamorphic constraints on ca. 70 Ma deformation of the northern Valhalla complex,British Columbia: implications for the tectonic evolution of the southern Omineca belt

Penetrative deformation occurred ca. 70 Ma ago throughout the northern Valhalla complex in Valhalla and Passmore domes and in the Gwillim Creek shear zone, exposed at the deepest structural levels in both domes. Intense strain (S_T) in the Gwillim Creek shear zone (domain II) was synchronous with and outlasted deformation (D₂) throughout the northern complex (domain I). Upper-amphibolite facies peak mineral assemblages define the predominant foliation. Temperature and pressure results, determined from microdomains with established relationships to reaction textures and microstructures, provide constraints on conditions under which deformation occurred. Deformation was synchronous with and outlasted peak metamorphic conditions at all structural levels. Peak conditions of 825°C and 730 MPa and 850°C and 840 MPa were determined for domains I and II, respectively. This was followed by cooling and retrograde garnet breakdown at conditions of 715°C and 490 MPa and 765°C and 730 MPa in domains I and II, respectively. The faster cooling rate per kilometer of exhumation for domain II relative to domain I is consistent with a model of conductive cooling via thrusting of domain II on to a cold footwall. Metamorphism is interpreted to have resulted from crustal thickening and burial to depths of ca. 25 km based on an inferred clockwise P–T path and the paucity of Late Cretaceous intrusions. Lack of retrograde metamorphism throughout the complex and the high degree of annealing of microstructures indicates that the rocks remained above greenschist-facies conditions until they were exhumed in the Early Tertiary on the Valkyr–Slocan Lake extensional shear zone system.Previous workers have determined that the peak of metamorphism occurred at 72–67 Ma in a restricted locality in the core of Passmore dome, near Vallican. Our study links this dated metamorphism with the structural evolution and metamorphic history throughout the area, and shows that supracrustal rocks at all structural levels in Valhalla and Passmore domes underwent the same metamorphic and deformation event as those near Vallican. Therefore, we assign a ca. 70 Ma age to the penetrative, high-temperature deformation in northern Valhalla complex and the Gwillim Creek shear zone. This coincides with a major period of shortening in the Rocky Mountains of the Foreland belt. Strain in northern Valhalla complex may represent a local transient shear zone that accommodated crustal thickening in the hinterland during orogen-scale compression, or it may be an exhumed part of the basal detachment of the Rocky Mountains.     

天山东段推覆构造研究

本文概括性总结了天山东段大型推覆构造的基本特征。根据地质证据和同位素年龄,东天山存在早古生代末,晚古生代晚期和新生代三期推覆构造;根据推覆构造分布规律及构造背景,在平面上划分为五大推覆带、9个大型韧剪带;根据出露岩石的矿物变形相将东天山推覆构造划分为深、中深和浅三个深度层次;通过韧剪变形组构的观察分析,确定了多期韧性变形性质与运动方向。糜棱岩中超微构造、古应力及小构造变形缩短率测量统计,证明东天山推覆变形具有显著的地壳缩短增厚作用。新生代板块碰撞导致本区中新生代盆地基底向造山带A型俯冲,造山带向盆地推覆,其结果就构成了今日看到的镶嵌状盆地-山脉构造地貌景观。     

Geologic and tectonic evolution of the Himalaya before and after the India-Asia collision

The geology and tectonics of the Himalaya has been reviewed in the light of new data and recent studies by the author. The data suggest that the Lesser Himalayan Gneissic Basement (LHGB) represents the northern extension of the Bundelkhand craton, Northern Indian shield and the large scale granite magmatism in the LHGB towards the end of the Palæoproterozoic Wangtu Orogeny, stabilized the early crust in this region between 2-1.9 Ga. The region witnessed rapid uplift and development of the Lesser Himalayan rift basin, wherein the cyclic sedimentation continued during the Palæoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic. The Tethys basin with the Vaikrita rocks at its base is suggested to have developed as a younger rift basin (～ 900 Ma ago) to the north of the Lesser Himalayan basin, floored by the LHGB. The southward shifting of the Lesser Himalayan basin marked by the deposition of Jaunsar-Simla and Blaini-Krol-Tal cycles in a confined basin, the changes in the sedimentation pattern in the Tethys basin during late Precambrian-Cambrian, deformation and the large scale granite activity (～ 500 ± 50 Ma), suggests a strong possibility of late Precambrian-Cambrian Kinnar Kailas Orogeny in the Himalaya. From the records of the oceanic crust of the Neo-Tethys basin, subduction, arc growth and collision, well documented from the Indus-Tsangpo suture zone north of the Tethys basin, it is evident that the Himalayan region has been growing gradually since Proterozoic, with a northward shift of the depocentre induced by N-S directed alternating compression and extension. During the Himalayan collision scenario, the 10–12km thick unconsolidated sedimentary pile of the Tethys basin (TSS), trapped between the subducting continental crust of the Indian plate and the southward thrusting of the oceanic crust of the Neo-Tethys and the arc components of the Indus-Tangpo collision zone, got considerably thickened through large scale folding and intra-formational thrusting, and moved southward as the Kashmir Thrust Sheet along the Panjal Thrust. This brought about early phase (M1) Barrovian type metamorphism of underlying Vaikrita rocks. With the continued northward push of the Indian Plate, the Vaikrita rocks suffered maximum compression, deformation and remobilization, and exhumed rapidly as the Higher Himalayan Crystallines (HHC) during Oligo-Miocene, inducing gravity gliding of its Tethyan sedimentary cover. Further, it is the continental crust of the LHGB that is suggested to have underthrust the Himalaya and southern Tibet, its cover rocks stacked as thrust slices formed the Himalayan mountain and its decollement surface reflected as the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT), in the INDEPTH profile.     

STRUCTURAL AND THERMAL EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH ASIAN CONTINENTAL MARGIN ALONG THE KARAKORAM AND HINDU KUSH RANGES,NORTH PAKISTAN

STRUCTURAL AND THERMAL EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH ASIAN CONTINENTAL MARGIN ALONG THE KARAKORAM AND HINDU KUSH RANGES,NORTH PAKISTAN     

Holocene deformation and crustal movements in some type areas of India

Recent crustal movements have been observed and studied in several parts of India including the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan regions, the Precambrian shield of peninsular India and also the coastal tracts. The results of studies of Holocene deformation and crustal movements in two type areas are presented, one in the extreme southeastern part of the peninsula and the other in northeastern India.The Precambrian shield in the extreme southeastern part is characterised by a major NE—SW trending fault zone in the Tirupattur—Mattur areas of Tamil Nadu with some major extended faults, one of which apparently cuts through the entire crust and Moho as indicated by gravity data and which is associated with occurrences of alkaline and basic intrusions and carbonatite complex. Evidence of Recent crustal movements in this zone is afforded by geomorphic features and recent and current seismicity of a mild nature which is apparently to be attributed to slow movements along the fault plane.The Shillong plateau in northeastern India occurs as block-uplifted horst, comprising for the most part Archaean crystalline rocks with plateau basalts and Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments occurring on its southern margin. The plateau is bounded by major faults and is located in a zone of high seismicity lying astride and parallel to the eastern Himalayas intervened by the alluvium of the Brahmaputra Valley. Geomorphic features such as raised terraces, straight-edged scarps, etc., provide evidence for Recent crustal movements with dominant vertical movements along the fault planes which have continued through Tertiary and Recent times. Repeated precision levelling measurements conducted by the Survey of India indicate a rate of uplift of 4–5 cm per 100 years during the period 1910–1975.The gravity data pertaining to this region are also discussed in relation to the crustal movements.     

The Himalayas

After splitting from Gondwanaland, India drifted northwards to collide with the Asian landmass about 40 million years ago. The intervening Tethys ocean was closed by northwards subduction beneath southern Tibet, and the collision created the Himalayan orogenic belt. Continuing northward movement of India at a rate of about 5 cm per year over the last 40 million years has caused it to indent Asia, and the resultant massive shortening is expressed by thrusting of the northern margin of India, by faulting and earthquakes in the Himalayas and China, by rifting and faulting in Tibet, and by the uplift of the Himalayas which is still continuing at rates of up to several millimetres per year.     

Lateral structural variability in zone of eocene island-arc-continent collision,Kamchatka

The lateral variability of structural elements in the collision zone of the Cretaceous-Paleocene Achaivayam-Valagin island arc with the northeastern Asian margin is considered. The similarity and difference of Eocene collision structural elements in the north and the south of Kamchatka are shown. In northern Kamchatka, the continent-arc boundary is traced along the Lesnaya-Vatyn Thrust Fault, which completed its evolution about 45 Ma ago. The thin, near-horizontal allochthon of this thrust, composed of island-arc rocks, overlies the deformed but unmetamorphosed terrigeneous sequences of the Asian margin. The general structure of this suture in the Kamchatka Isthmus and southern Koryakia is comparable with the uppermost subduction zone, where a thin lithospheric wedge overlaps intensely deformed sediments detached from the plunging plate. In southern Kamchatka (Malka Uplift of the Sredinny Range), the arc-continent collision started 55–53 Ma ago with thrusting of island-arc complexes over terrigenous rocks of continental margin. However, the thickness of the allochthon was much greater than in the north. Immediately after this event, both the autochthon and lower part of allochthon were deformed and subsided to a significant depth. This subsidence gave rise to metamorphism of both the autochthon (Kolpakov and Kamchatka groups, Kheivan Formation) and lower allochthon (Andrianovka and Khimka formations). The anomalously fast heating of the crust was most likely related to the ascent of asthenospheric masses due to slab breakoff, when the Eurasian Plate was plunging beneath the Achaivayam-Valagin arc.