Shoshonitic and ultrapotassic post-collisional dykes from northern Karakorum (Sinkiang, China)

High-K calc-alkaline, shoshonitic and ultrapotassic post-collisional dykes of Neogene age have been found in the remote and little known region of northern Karakorum located around the Shaksgam valley, north of the K2-Gasherbrum range (China). The dykes derive from more or less comparable basic magma(s) and display rather unusual petrographic and geochemical characters with respect to the other K-rich rocks. The geochemical data are consistent with derivation of the basic magma(s) from small degrees of partial melting of garnet-lherzolites previously enriched in incompatible elements of crustal origin possibly during the subduction of the Indian plate beneath Karakorum. The spectrum of compositions reflects fractional crystallization governed by an early removal of clinopyroxene, phlogopite, plagioclase, garnet±amphibole followed by the precipitation of abundant alkali feldspar, amphibole±apatite±quartz. Additionally, assimilation of crustal rocks during magma ascent contributed to the unusual compositional characteristics and is suggested by the abundance of corroded quartz ( ± plagioclase) xenocrysts and by the occasional presence of granitic xenoliths.

An apparent connection exists between magmatism and tectonism in the complex Karakorum Fault Zone (KFZ). It is suggested that, during the Neogene, the strike-slip KFZ and some adjacent post-metamorphic faults transiently behaved as extensional fault systems down to deep levels, triggering ascent and emplacement of the K-rich magma. The subsequent (re)activation of a compressive and transcurrent regime determined the rapid and recent uplift of the more primitive lamprophyres occurring in the plutonites and metamorphites of the upper Baltoro Glacier and K2-Gasherbrum range, relative to the more fractionated and contaminated lamprophyres injecting the shallower rocks of the Shaksgam valley area.