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Upper Cretaceous trench deposits of the Neo-Tethyan subduction zone: Jiachala Formation from Yarlung Zangbo suture zone in Tibet, China

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Abstract

The history of convergence between the India and the Asia plates, and of their subsequent collision which triggered the Himalayan orogeny is recorded in the Yarlung Zangbo suture zone. Exposed along the southern side of the suture, turbidites of the the Jiachala Formation fed largely from the Gangdese arc have long been considered as post-collisional foreland-basin deposits based on the reported occurrence of Paleocene-early Eocene dinoflagellate cysts and pollen assemblages. Because magmatic activity in the Gangdese arc continued through the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene, this scenario is incompatible with U-Pb ages of detrital zircons invariably older than the latest Cretaceous. To solve this conundrum, we carried out detailed stratigraphic, sedimentological, paleontological, and provenance analyses in the Gyangze and Sajia areas of southern Tibet, China. The Jiachala Formation consists of submarine fan deposits that lie in fault contact with the Zongzhuo Formation. Sandstone petrography together with U-Pb ages and Hf isotope ratios of detrital zircons indicate provenance from the Gangdese arc and central Lhasa terrane. Well preserved pollen or dinoflagellate cysts microfossils were not found in spite of careful research, and the youngest age obtained from zircon grain was ∼84 Ma. Based on sedimentary facies, provenance analysis and tectonic position, we suggest that the Jiachala Formation was deposited during the Late Cretaceous (∼88–84 Ma) in the trench formed along the southern edge of Asia during subduction of Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Wang Chengshan, Wu Fuyuan, Li Xianghui, Wan Xiaoqiao and Li Jianguo for constructive discussion and suggestions, Bian Lizeng and Roger Tremain for help in palynological processing, Zhou Bo for assistance in the field, and Lai Wen and Xue Weiwei for help in Hf isotopic analysis. We are grateful to the reviewers for their constructive comments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41525007, 41602115).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Mineral Deposits Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Hanpu Fu, Xiumian Hu & Wei An

  2. GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt, 5040, New Zealand

    Erica M. Crouch

  3. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Wei An

  4. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Jiangang Wang

  5. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, 20126, Italy

    Eduardo Garzanti

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Fu, H., Hu, X., Crouch, E.M. et al. Upper Cretaceous trench deposits of the Neo-Tethyan subduction zone: Jiachala Formation from Yarlung Zangbo suture zone in Tibet, China. Sci. China Earth Sci. 61, 1204–1220 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-017-9223-5

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