Top-to-south shear at the base of the eastern Tethyan Himalayan Sequence during the Eocene-Oligocene Himalayan orogeny

The early mountain building processes in the Himalayan orogen are still not clear because of extensive deformation and metamorphism since the Miocene. A large gently dipping ductile shear zone, referred as the Tethyan Himalayan Décollement (THD), is defined here as the sole décollement of the south-verging Tethyan fold-and-thrust belt in the Lhozag-Cuona area of the eastern Himalayan orogen. The ∼4 km-thick THD is characterized by a top-to-south shear sense, moderate T/P Barrovian to high T/P Buchan type metamorphism and Eocene-Miocene partial melting. Zircon U-Pb dating of metasedimentary rocks and granitic gneisses from the THD yields protolith ages of the Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician. Based on structural analysis, zircon U-Pb ages, monazite U-Pb ages and mica ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar thermochronology, the THD was the boundary shear zone at the top of the Greater Himalayan Crystalline Complex (GHC) and accommodated the persistent north-south shortening in the Tethyan Himalayan Sequence (THS) from ∼50 Ma to 20–17 Ma. From ∼20–17 Ma, the top-to-north South Tibetan Detachment System (STDS) was predominantly activated to juxtapose the unmetamorphosed or low-grade THS over the GHC. This tectonic transition can be attributed to the roof collapse in the eastern Himalaya (younger than that of the central-western Himalaya), which triggered rapid exhumation of the GHC and the northern Tethyan Himalayan gneiss domes. Hence, the THD was the predecessor of the STDS and a prolonged pathway for leucogranitic melts from the Eocene to early Miocene. The transition from the THD-controlled crustal thickening in the Eocene and Oligocene to the STDS-controlled extrusion in the Miocene shed insights on a new synthesis of the tectonic wedging model for the Himalayan evolution.