South Tibetan Detachment System (STDS), NW Himalaya: A possible Cambro–Ordovician tectonic terrane boundary, and its Cenozoic remobilization

Abstract

The South Tibetan Detachment System is an important extensional fault zone, separating the Greater Himalayan Sequence from the overlying Tethyan Himalayan Sequence, and is well exposed in the upper reaches of the Dhauliganga valley, NW Himalaya. This fault system is characterized by the occurrence of an extensive Cambro–Ordovician granite belt between Sutlej and Dhauliganga valleys, although only a few small granitoids intrude the high-grade mylonite gneiss of the Greater Himalayan Sequence in its immediate footwall. These bodies yielded U-Pb zircon crystallization ages between 498.92 ± 5.5 Ma and 486.54 ± 2.3 Ma. This work postulates that the South Tibetan Detachment System evolved as a major proto-tectonic marginal extensional terrane boundary during the Cambro–Ordovician Kurgiakh/Bhimphedian Orogeny, when it was the conduit for emplacement of the Cambro–Ordovician granite belt. Denudation of the Neoproterozoic Greater Himalayan Sequence and the Paleozoic granites on its footwall provided approximately ∼ 10 km thick sediments into the Tethyan Basin due to this fault system as a master growth fault. Reactivation of this fault system controlled further melting and emplacement of the Higher Himalayan Leucogranite belt during the Cenozoic. Zircon growth is observed in two distinct modes: pulsative from the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, with peaks at 33.99 ± 1.07 Ma, 30.53 ± 0.32 Ma and 25.03 ± 0.54 Ma; and in the continuous mode from 23.68 ± 0.94 Ma to 13.30 ± 0.30 Ma, in the Miocene, for nearly 10.0 myr. These datasets reveal some of the oldest pulsative movements in the Late Eocene–Early Oligocene during crustal thickening, thrusting and associated metamorphism, followed by continuous extension during the Miocene. Data from the South Tibetan Detachment System are distinct in character, and do not support either its eastwards younging or diachronous movements along the Dhauliganga valley.