ZOBODAT - www.zobodat.at Zoologisch-Botanische Datenbank/Zoological-Botanical Database Digitale Literatur/Digital Literature Zeitschrift/Journal: Austrian Journal of Earth Sciences Jahr/Year: 2014 Band/Volume: 107_1 Autor(en)/Author(s): Sengör A. M. Celal, Natalin Boris A., Sunal Gürsel, Voo Rob van der Artikel/Article: A new look at the Altaids: A superorogenic complex in Northern and Central Asia as a factory of continental crust. Part I: Geological data compilation (exclusive of palaeomagnetic observations). 169-232 © Österreichische Geologische Gesellschaft/Austria; download unter www.geol-ges.at/ und www.biologiezentrum.at Austrian Journal of Earth Sciences Volume 107/1 Vienna 2014 A new look at the Altaids: A superorogenic complex in Northern and Central Asia as a factory of continental crust. Part I: Geological data compilation (exclusive of palaeomagnetic observations)_____________________________ A. M. Celâl ŞENGÖR1)2)*), Boris A. NATAL'IN1), Gürsel SUNAL1) & Rob van der VOO3) 1) KEYWORDS İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Maden Fakültesi, Jeoloji Bölümü, Ayazağa 34469 İstanbul, TURKEY; 2) İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Avrasya Yerbilimleri Enstitüsü, Ayazağa 34469 İstanbul, TURKEY; subduction-accretion complexes growth of continental crust 3) University of Michigan, Earth and Environmental Sciences, 2534 C.C. Little Building, 1100 North University Ave., Central and Northern Asia 3) Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1005, USA; Eduard Suess island arcs *) Corresponding author, [email protected] Altaids It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. William Claude Dukenfield (alias W. C. Fields) Abstract The Altaids are one of the largest superorogenic complexes in the world in which two genetically closely related orogenic com- plexes ended up generating much of northern Asia during the Palaeozoic and the early and medial Mesozoic. This immense super- orogenic complex evolved as a consequence of the development of two large island arc systems called the Kipchak and the Tuva- Mongol arcs and that were similar in size to the present-day Southwest Pacific arc chains. They both have rifted from the then com- bined (or close) Siberian and Russian cratons during the latest Neoproterozoic/earliest Cambrian following the Baykalide/Preuralide orogeny. As a consequence of this rifting, the Khanty-Mansi Ocean opened behind them and they faced the Turkestan and the Khangai-Khantey Oceans, respectively. It is at the expense of these oceans that these two arc systems generated large subduction- accretion complexes. The Kipchak Arc was completely detached from the Siberian craton during the Neoproterozoic and it was re- connected with it along its trend by means of ensimatic arc systems that formed along its strike during the medial to late Cambrian. These ensimatic arcs also accumulated large volumes of subduction-accretion complexes in front of them during their migratory de- velopment throughout the Palaeozoic and, in Mongolia and in the Russian Far East, into the medial Mesozoic. As the accretionary complexes grew, magmatic fronts of their arcs migrated into them, turning them into arc massifs by magmatism and HT/LP meta- morphism in arc cores. Especially near the Siberian Craton and in the Khangai-Khantey Ocean, the subduction-accretion complexes were fed by turbidites shed from old continental crustal pieces. Where arc magmatic axes migrated into such accretionary complexes, the material of which is of ancient continental provenance, they in places exhibit Proterozoic zircon ages and isotopic signatures inherited from their ancient source terrains leading to the mistaken conclusion of the presence of ancient continental crust under such arcs. It seems imperative to have proper field geological data together with the isotopic work to derive any reliable conclusions concerning crustal growth rates.________________________________________________________________________________ We have compiled 1090 new, mostly zircon ages of magmatic and some metamorphic rocks from the literature for the whole of the Altaid supeororogenic complex. These ages show continuous arc activity from the Ediacaran into the early Cretaceous in the Altaids, although arc magmatism turned off already in the Triassic in the western Altaids. Much of the succeeding alkalic magma- tism in the western moiety of the superorogenic complex was related to strike-slip activity opening the West Siberian basins such as the Nurol and Nadym and the large pull-apart basins of Alakol, Junggar and Turfan. There are numerous other smaller areas of extension related to the late Altaid strike-slip activity and they too have alkalic magmatism associated with them. Some of the alkalic granites not related to the late strike-slip activity may have been related to slab fall-off after terminal collisions, although this is now difficult to document with any confidence. It is noteworthy that no Tibet-type collisional plateaux were ever produced as a conse- quence of Altaid collisions.____________________________________________________________________________________ We have been able to find no evidence anywhere in the Altaids for independent trans-oceanic migrations of numerous 'terranes' tied to individual subduction zones. Only two major subduction zones were responsible for the entire Altaid evolution from the be- ginning to the end and this is consistent not only with the present tectonics of the earth, where major subduction zones display great spatial continuity and temporal persistence, but also with the tomographic observations on well-imaged former subduction zones such as those associated with the Tethyan and the North American Cordilleran chains.______________________________ The entire Altaid collage now occupies some 8,745,000 km2. At least half of this area represents juvenile addition to the continental crust during the Ediacaran to the earliest Cretaceous interval. That is more than 10% of the entire land area of the Asian continent. Similar events are now going on in the Nipponides in eastern Asia, in the Oceanian arc systems in the southwestern Pacific Ocean © Österreichische Geologische Gesellschaft/Austria; download unter www.geol-ges.at/ und www.biologiezentrum.at A new look at the Altaids: A superorogenic complex in Northern and Central Asia as a factory of continental crust. Part I: Geological data compilation (exclusive of palaeomagnetic observations)_____________________________________________________________________________________ and in places around the Caribbea and the southern Antilles. Altaids were one of the main factories—if not the main factory— for the generation of the continental crustal during the earlier half of the Phanerozoic on our earth. This was not because the growth rate of the crust was unusual, but because so much of it was produced in such a huge area and in an interval of some half a billion years. 1. Introduction[1] In the third volume of Das Antlitz der Erde (The Face of the nites and overlain by diverse types of mainly intermediate and Earth), Eduard Suess (1901) pointed out that mountain ranges felsic volcanic rocks and terrestrial and shallow water sedimen- to the south and west of the East Siberian table-land consis- tary blankets during much of the Palaeozoic. It is these moun- ted mostly of Palaeozoic schists, slates and clastic sedimen- tain ranges that he collectively called the Altaids after the Altay tary rocks, serpentinites and mafic rocks, all intruded by gra- Mountains in the present Russian Federation (Fig. 1), i.e., the Figure 1: Suess' map of the Altaids (Suess, 1901, Plate VII; we here reproduce the English version from Suess, 1908, plate VII). Brown lines represent the trend lines of individual parts of the Altaids, i.e., the average strike of the beds and thrust faults. The red lines are what Suess called disjunctive lines, bounding basins younger than the Altaid folds. Suess thought they were mostly normal faults. We now know that many had started their lives as normal faults indeed, but after the medial Triassic began turning into thrust faults. Grey areas are regions of subsidence. Suess thought the entire Siberian craton was one such area. Large areas of brownish grey colour are regions of faultless gentle subsidence, covered by deposits of Mesozoic and Cainozoic ages. Buff-coloured areas are regions of coal deposits. Lakes are greenish blue.___________________________________ 1 In the following paper, we use capital F to refer to our own figures as Fig. and lower case f to refer to figures that we cite from the literature, as fig. Designations as Lower, Middle and Upper in formal rock and time-rock stratigraphic terms are all capitalised. Those as early, medial and late in time stratigraphic units are not capitalised, contrary to the recommendations of the International Stratigraphic Guide (Salvador et al., 1994), simply because time corresponding to the deposition of certain rock groups cannot be formalised where not even units can be defined (note the disclaimer in the Inter- national Chronostratigraphic Chart of the IUGS International Commission on Stratigraphy {http://www.stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2013- 01.jpg} : 'Numerical ages are subject to revision and do not define units in the Phanerozoic and the Ediacaran; only GSSPs do.. '). We write Gondwana- Land when we mean Suess' large continent in the southern hemisphere and not Gondwana, which designates a historical region in Central India, after which a number of geological entities such as the Gondwana System or the Plateau of Gondwana had