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Structural Evolution of the Gurla Mandhata Detachment System, Southwest Tibet: Implications for the Eastward Extent of the Karakoram Fault System

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Structural Evolution of the Gurla Mandhata Detachment System, Southwest Tibet: Implications for the Eastward Extent of the Karakoram Fault System Structural evolution of the Gurla Mandhata detachment system, southwest Tibet: Implications for the eastward extent of the Karakoram fault system M.A. Murphy* An Yin P. Kapp² T.M. Harrison C.E. Manning Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1567, USA F.J. Ryerson Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA Ding Lin Guo Jinghui Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China ABSTRACT that they represent an evolving low-angle boundaries between tectonically distinct do- normal-fault system. 40Ar/39Ar data from mains are de®ned. Although several insightful Field mapping and geochronologic and muscovite and biotite from the footwall studies have been conducted to understand the thermobarometric analyses of the Gurla rocks indicate that it cooled below 400 8C processes controlling contemporaneous east- Mandhata area, in southwest Tibet, reveal by ca. 9 Ma. Consideration of the original west extension and distributed strike-slip major middle to late Miocene, east-west ex- depth and dip angle of the detachment fault faulting within the Tibetan plateau and north- tension along a normal-fault system, prior to exhumation of the footwall yields south shortening in the Himalayan thrust belt termed the Gurla Mandhata detachment total slip estimates between 66 and 35 km (Armijo et al., 1989; Molnar and Lyon-Caen, system. The maximum fault slip occurs across the Gurla Mandhata detachment 1989; Avouac and Tapponnier, 1993; Molnar along a pair of low-angle normal faults that system. The slip estimates and timing con- et al., 1993; England and Molnar, 1997; have caused signi®cant tectonic denudation straints on the Gurla Mandhata detach- McCaffrey and Nabelek, 1998; Seeber and of the Tethyan Sedimentary Sequence, re- ment system are comparable to those esti- PeÃcher, 1998; Yin et al., 1999a), the evolution sulting in juxtaposition of weakly metamor- mated on the right-slip Karakoram fault and even location of the boundaries between phosed Paleozoic rocks and Tertiary sedi- system, to which it is interpreted to be ki- these two structural regimes remain insuf®- mentary rocks in the hanging wall over nematically linked. Moreover, the mean ciently understood to make quantitative recon- amphibolite-facies mylonitic schist, marble, shear-sense direction on both the Karako- structions since the initial collision between gneisses, and variably deformed leucogran- ram fault and the Gurla Mandhata detach- India and Asia at ca. 50±70 Ma (Klootwijk et ite bodies in the footwall. The footwall of ment system overlap along the intersection al., 1992; Rowley, 1996; Hodges, 2000; Yin the detachment fault system records a late line between the mean orientations of the and Harrison, 2000). Miocene intrusive event, in part contem- faults, which further supports a kinematic The boundary between the western Tibetan poraneous with top-to-the-west ductile nor- association. If valid, this interpretation ex- plateau and the Himalayan fold-and-thrust belt mal shearing. The consistency of the mean tends previous results that the Karakoram is de®ned by the Karakoram fault (Fig. 1). It shear direction within the mylonitic foot- fault extends to mid-crustal depths. wall rocks and its correlation with struc- Keywords: Himalayas, kinematics, meta- turally higher brittle normal faults suggest Figure 1. Simpli®ed geologic map of south- morphic core complex, strike-slip faults, Ti- west Tibet compiled from mapping by Au- betan plateau. *Present address: Department of Geosciences, gusto Gansser (Heim and Gansser, 1939), University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-5007, Tibetan Bureau of Geology and Mineral USA; e-mail: [email protected]. INTRODUCTION ²Present address: Department of Geosciences, Resources (Cheng and Xu, 1987), Yin et al. University of Arizona, Tucson, Arisona 85721- The extent to which we can reconstruct oro- (1999b), and our own observations. 0077. genic systems is governed by how well the M GSA Bulletin; April 2002; v. 114; no. 4; p. 428±447; 15 ®gures; 5 tables; Data Repository item 2002048. For permission to copy, contact [email protected] 428 q 2002 Geological Society of America STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION OF THE GURLA MANDHATA DETACHMENT SYSTEM, SOUTHWEST TIBET Geological Society of America Bulletin, April 2002 429 MURPHY et al. has been previously proposed that the Kara- On the basis of timing constraints, kinematic Chen, 1984; Burch®el et al., 1992) (Fig. 1) koram fault system accommodates (1) north- data, and slip estimates for both faults, we ad- and is composed of sedimentary, granitic, and ward indentation of the Pamir promontory vocate a kinematic link between the Karako- volcanic rocks of Late Proterozoic±Early (Tapponnier et al., 1981; Burtman and Molnar, ram fault system and the Gurla Mandhata de- Cambrian age (Parrish and Hodges, 1996; 1993; Strecker et al., 1995; Searle, 1996), (2) tachment system. DeCelles et al., 2000), which were metamor- radial expansion of the Himalayan arc (Mol- phosed in the Tertiary. The North (or Tethyan) nar and Lyon-Caen, 1989; Ratschbacher et al., Regional Geology Himalaya lies between the South Tibetan de- 1994; Seeber and PeÃcher, 1998), and (3) east- tachment system and the Indus-Yalu suture ward lateral extrusion of the Tibetan plateau The Himalayan-Tibetan orogen is built zone. It consists of upper Precambrian±lower (Tapponnier et al., 1982; Peltzer and Tappon- upon a complex tectonic collage that was cre- Paleozoic sedimentary and metasedimentary nier, 1988; Armijo et al., 1989; PeÃcher, 1991; ated by sequential accretion, from north to rocks (Gansser, 1964; Yin et al., 1988; Gar- Avouac and Tapponnier, 1993). Assessing the south, of several microcontinents, ¯ysch com- zanti, 1999) and thick Permian±Cretaceous relationships between deformation of the re- plexes, and island arcs onto the southern mar- continental-margin sequences (Cheng and Xu, gions emphasized in the three proposed causes gin of Eurasia since the early Paleozoic (Al- 1987; Brook®eld, 1993; Garzanti, 1999). The of the movement along the Karakoram fault leÁgre et al., 1984; Chang et al., 1986; SËengoÈr entire sequence is commonly referred to as the system continues to be problematic because of and Natal'in, 1996; Yin and Nie, 1996; Hodg- Tethyan Sedimentary Sequence. uncertainties in its initiation age, the net slip es, 2000; Yin and Harrison, 2000). From north The active trace of the Karakoram fault cuts on it, and the location of its potential lateral to south, the major tectonic elements in central obliquely across the Songpan-Ganzi terrane continuation across the Himalayan-Tibetan or- and south Tibet consist of a middle Paleozoic and the Qiangtang and Lhasa blocks; at the ogen. From the southern Pamirs southward to microcontinent known as the Kunlun block, a southeast end of the trace in the Mount Kailas± Mount Kailas, the Karakoram fault is well de- Permian±Lower Jurassic ¯ysch sequence re- Gurla Mandhata region, the active trace of the lineated. East of Mount Kailas, however, the ferred to as the Songpan Ganzi terrane, a mid- fault cuts across the Indus-Yalu suture into the location of the fault is speculative (e.g., Ar- dle Paleozoic±Jurassic microcontinent, re- North Himalaya (Fig. 1). Four fault systems mijo et al., 1989; Ratschbacher et al., 1994). ferred to as the Qiangtang block, and a merge in this region: (1) the South Kailas Hypotheses for the geometry and extent of Paleozoic±Mesozoic microcontinent known as thrust, the site of north-directed movement the Karakoram fault system at its southeast the Lhasa block (AlleÁgre et al., 1984; Chang (Gansser, 1964; Yin et al., 1999b); (2) the end de®ne two groups. Peltzer and Tapponnier et al., 1986; SËengoÈr and Natal'in, 1996; Mur- Tethyan fold-and-thrust belt, the site of south- (1988) proposed that the Karakoram fault sys- phy et al., 1997). Discontinuous belts of ultra- directed folding and offset; (3) the right-slip tem transfers slip to the Indus-Yalu suture ma®c rocks separate each of these tectonic el- Karakoram fault; and (4) the down-to-the-west zone in the Mount Kailas±Gurla Mandhata re- ements and are interpreted to represent Gurla Mandhata detachment system. gion and extends across the entire length of obducted oceanic crust now de®ning the su- southern Tibet. Alternatively, PeÃcher (1991) ture between them (AlleÁgre et al., 1984; Gi- Geologic Setting and Previous Work suggested that the Karakoram fault system rardeau et al., 1984; Pearce and Deng, 1988). links with the South Tibet detachment system. The ®nal assembling of this Tibetan collage The Mount Kailas area was ®rst investigat- He noted a systematic de¯ection in the ori- occurred with the docking of the Lhasa block ed by Augusto Gansser in 1935 (Heim and entation of mineral-stretching lineations at the in the Late Jurassic (Yin et al., 1988). Togeth- Gansser, 1939; Gansser, 1964), who recog- top of the Greater Himalayan Crystalline Se- er with the previously accreted blocks, the nized both a thrust system with south-directed quence, which he interpreted to indicate a Lhasa block constitutes the southern extent of slip involving the Tethyan Sedimentary Se- right-lateral shear. Opposing both of these in- Asia prior to accretion of the Indian subcon- quence and a thrust system with north-directed terpretations is the view that the Karakoram tinent at ca. 60±50 Ma (Klootwijk et al., 1992; slip along the Indus-Yalu suture zone, referred fault system terminates into the north-trending Rowley, 1996). The Indus-Yalu suture sepa- to as the South Kailas thrust (Fig. 1). This area Pulan basin adjacent to Gurla Mandhata rates these accreted blocks from Indian remained unmapped following Gansser's re- (Ratschbacher et al., 1994) or merges and ter- subcontinent. connaissance work until 1987 when the Ti- minates into the Indus-Yalu suture zone in the The Himalaya lies between the Indian betan Bureau of Geology and Mineral Re- Mount Kailas area (Searle, 1996) (Fig.
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