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Constraining the timing of the India-Asia continental collision by the sedimentary record

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Abstract

Placing precise constraints on the timing of the India-Asia continental collision is essential to understand the successive geological and geomorphological evolution of the orogenic belt as well as the uplift mechanism of the Tibetan Plateau and their effects on climate, environment and life. Based on the extensive study of the sedimentary record on both sides of the Yarlung-Zangbo suture zone in Tibet, we review here the present state of knowledge on the timing of collision onset, discuss its possible diachroneity along strike, and reconstruct the early structural and topographic evolution of the Himalayan collided range. We define continent-continent collision as the moment when the oceanic crust is completely consumed at one point where the two continental margins come into contact. We use two methods to constrain the timing of collision onset: (1) dating the provenance change from Indian to Asian recorded by deep-water turbidites near the suture zone, and (2) dating the age of unconformities on both sides of the suture zone. The first method allowed us to constrain precisely collision onset as middle Palaeocene (59±1 Ma). Marine sedimentation persisted in the collisional zone for another 20–25 Ma locally in southern Tibet, and molassic-type deposition in the Indian foreland basin did not begin until another 10–15 Ma later. Available sedimentary evidence failed to firmly document any significant diachroneity of collision onset from the central Himalaya to the western Himalaya and Pakistan so far. Based on the Cenozoic stratigraphic record of the Tibetan Himalaya, four distinct stages can be identified in the early evolution of the Himalayan orogen: (1) middle Palaeocene-early Eocene earliest Eohimalayan stage (from 59 to 52 Ma): collision onset and filling of the deep-water trough along the suture zone while carbonate platform sedimentation persisted on the inner Indian margin; (2) early-middle Eocene early Eohimalayan stage (from 52 to 41 or 35 Ma): filling of intervening seaways and cessation of marine sedimentation; (3) late Eocene-Oligocene late Eohimalayan stage (from 41 to 25 Ma): huge gap in the sedimentary record both in the collision zone and in the Indian foreland; and (4) late Oligocene-early Miocene early Neohimalayan stage (from 26 to 17 Ma): rapid Himalayan growth and onset of molasse-type sedimentation in the Indian foreland basin.

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Acknowledgements

Our studies over the past years have benefited from discussions and communications with many colleagues, including Fabrizio Berra, Marcelle BouDagher-Fadel, ** Chen, Sunlin Chung, **gen Dai, Lin Ding, Wentao Huang, Flavio Jadoul, Luba Jansa, **anghui Li, Ted Moore, Yani Najman, Alda Nicora, Isabella Raffi, Dario Sciunnach, Hugh Sinclair, Chengshan Wang, Qiang Wang, Alexander Webb, Fuyuan Wu, and Dicheng Zhu. Several students participated actively in our Himalayan research, including Lei Chen, Ronghua Guo, Zhong Han, Hehe Jiang, Gaoyuan Sun, and Bo Zhou. The suggestions and advice received from colleagues and friends has contributed notably to this review article. We especially thank the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuyuan Wu, for inviting us to write this article. This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41525007), the Stratigraphic Pilot Science and Technology Projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Class B) (Grant No. XDB03010400).

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

    **uMian Hu, Wei An & Juan Li

  2. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100029, China

    JianGang Wang

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

    Wei An

  4. Laboratory for Provenance Studies, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, 20126, Italy

    Eduardo Garzanti

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Hu, X., Wang, J., An, W. et al. Constraining the timing of the India-Asia continental collision by the sedimentary record. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 603–625 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-016-9003-6

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