Detrital Thermochronology of the Indus-Yarlung suture zone and implications for the tectonic and surface evolution of southern Tibet

Abstract:

Detrital thermochronology has the unique potential to resolve the timing of source cooling associated with magmatic, tectonic and surface processes. Correct interpretation of the detrital signature requires a multi-dating approach involving chronometers sensitive to different temperatures and processes. A multi-dating study of modern river sands from southern Tibet reveals distinct cooling signals that provide significant information about tectonic and erosional evolution of the Indus-Yarlung suture (IYS) after the India-Asia collision with implications for the Cenozoic topographic evolution of the Tibetan Plateau. Modern sands from tributaries of the Yarlung River provide an opportunity to broadly sample source rocks exposed within the suture zone, including the Gangdese batholith, Xigaze forearc, Cenozoic basins, and Tethyan Himalayan rocks, and to investigate their regional geochemical signatures. Samples from rivers along the IYS in southern Tibet, between Xigaze and Mt. Kailas, were analyzed for detrital geochronology and low-temperature thermochronology. Comparison between ages recorded in the source and the detrital signature indicates that both the ages and their proportions directly reflect the ages and relative areas of source rocks in the catchment basins. Apatite fission track ages show two main cooling signals at 22-18 Ma and 12 Ma, which are consistent with accelerated exhumation of the Gangdese batholith and Oligo-Miocene Kailas basin and indicate significant regional exhumation of the IYS during the Miocene. Regional exhumation recorded throughout the IYS is likely the combined product of active Miocene tectonics and erosion of a paleo-Yarlung River. Efficient incision and evacuation of material from the IYS zone by a paleo-Yarlung River during the Miocene suggests a significantly different paleoenvironment than that which exists today. Miocene capture of the Yarlung River by the Brahmaputra River may have enhanced erosion in the IYS zone.