A Case for Plane-Strain during the Development of the Indo-Burma Fold-Thrust Belt in Tripura and Mizoram, Northeast India (23-24°N; 91-93°E)

Abstract:

The Indo-Burma fold-thrust belt (FTB) in northeast India and Myanmar records shortening of a forearc prism resulting from ongoing collision of the Burma microplate and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. A >5 km thick succession of deep water, deltaic and tidal as well as fluvial deposits that span the Oligocene to present were deformed to form a ~400 km wide FTB between 91.5-96°E longitude. India-Eurasia convergence across the Indo-Burma region trends northeast and is highly oblique to the northerly structural trend of the FTB. According to geodetic data, 21 mm/yr of dextral shear and 18 mm/yr of approximately east-west shortening must be accommodated within the FTB between the active thrust front in Bangladesh (90.5°E) and the Sagaing Fault in Myanmar (96°E). This paper presents new surface geologic data collected along a ~250 km transect that crosses 15 anticline-syncline pairs between the cities of Argatala (~91.2°E) and Champhai (93.3°E), the part of FTB exposing syn-Himalayan sediment, to determine the degree of noncoaxial shear that is accommodated internally within the belt. Results indicate that the majority of the folds are upright or asymmetric horizontal folds that are either concentric or have a narrow hinge (chevron folds) and form open—closed interlimb angles which generally tighten from the foreland toward the hinterland. A cylindrical best fit describes the data well and shows dominantly east-west shortening with a horizontal north-trending regional fold axis (005/01 ± 2°). Shortening was partly accommodated by flexural slip. Flexural slip-lineations (n=32) are subperpendicular to the regional fold axis. In some locations the limbs of folds are breached by thrust faults that dip either east or west and strike north. Incremental strain axes calculated from the flexural-slip surfaces and thrust faults (n=61) indicate horizontal west-trending shortening (279/03 ± 8°) and vertical extension that is kinematically compatible with folding. Altogether, contractional structures that formed internally within the FTB are indicative of east-west horizontal shortening and plane strain. This result suggests that the dextral component of shear measured by geodetic data is primarily partitioned onto discrete right-lateral strike-slip faults such as the Churachandpur-Mao and Kabaw faults.