Geochemical discrimination of metabasalt rocks of the Fan–Karategin transitional blueschist/greenschist belt, South Tianshan, Tajikistan: seamount volcanism and accretionary tectonics

The Fan–Karategin metamorphic belt, South Tianshan, Tajikistan, is regarded to be an ancient subduction–accretionary complex and is composed of three tectonostratigraphic units which display lithologies consistent with different tectonic settings. The mafic schists, which make up the major part of the older unit of the belt, contain both alkali and tholeiitic metabasalts. On the basis of rare-earth and other immobile element characteristics, the alkali metabasalts are akin to within-plate ocean island basalts, whereas the tholeiitic metabasalts resemble E-type MORB. The association is interpreted to have been formed on seamount-like structures under a within-plate plume. Bedded cherts and marbles in the unit are regarded as ancient pelagic sediments and carbonate caps developed upon basaltic seamounts, respectively. Dismemberment of the seamount-related basalts and pelagic sediments and the high-P/low-T prograde metamorphism of the unit rocks up to transitional blueschist/greenschist facies was the result of paleoseamount submergence into a subduction zone. This unit is tectonically overlain by arc-derived metavolcanic unit and a disrupted, mainly clastic unit of Upper Ordovician–Lower Silurian age. Metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the two upper units have geochemical characteristics compatible with subduction-related origin. The lithological assemblages of the individual units and their juxtaposition suggest an origin involving collision–accretionary processes. The Fan–Karategin belt is a subduction–accretionary complex which formed during subduction of oceanic crust under a volcanic arc and was subjected to tectonic juxtaposition and imbrication of seamount, deep-sea, trench and volcanic arc sequences.