Alkaline orogenic plutonism in the Karakorum batholith: the Upper Cretaceous Koz Sar complex (Karambar valley,N. Pakistan)

Abstract

The Karakorum is located north of the India/Kohistan-Ladakh/Eurasia sutures. Along the Karambar valley, its axial batholith comprises four plutonic complexes. (1) The largest one represents the westerly continuation of the huge mid-Cretaceous calc-alkaline Hunza plutonic unit. This unit here displays a remarkable reverse zoning that would result from a differentiation at depth followed by multipulse intrusions. (2) A stock of subalkaline (i.e. intermediate between alkaline and calc-alkaline) granitoids (Warghut porphyritic granite). (3) A composite group of fine-grained granitoids. (4) The so-called Koz Sar alkaline complex (KSAC), a unique example of this composition of plutonism so far reported in the batholith. In addition, leucogranite dykes and rare alkaline mafic ones occur.

The KSAC is a heterogeneous and more or less deformed body, ca. 5 km wide and possibly 20 km long, comprising two coeval groups of rocks. (1) Medium- to coarse-grained rocks are the most representative members of the complex. They consist of metaluminous to slightly peralkaline monzonite, quartz monzonite, granite and leucogranite, with iron-rich mafic silicates and Fe-Ti oxide. These subsolvus granitoids define a strongly ferriferous alkaline series. Five monzonite and quartz monzonite samples yield an isochron Rb-Sr age of 88 ± 4 Ma (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_i = 0.70440 ± 7; MSWD = 1.7). (2) Fine-grained rocks (monzogabbro to quartz syenite) are compositionally comparable to the dark-coloured members of the preceding group.

The KSAC was emplaced into a post-collisional environment resulting from the accretion, maybe at least since Aptian times, of the Kohistan island arc to the Karakorum. Its alkaline character testifies to the development of extensional tectonics, a process compatible with an oblique collision and/or with the decrease, at the time of collision, of the convergence velocity between the two colliding terrenes. Available data suggest that this alkaline complex (1) is late-orogenic, (2) is genetically-related to the nearby subalkaline granitoids and originates from the same mantle-source with a small crustal contribution, and (3) represents the ultimate member of the mid-Cretaceous subduction-related plutonism emplaced into the Karakorum continental margin.