Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:15:33.197Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of erosion and extension in unroofing the Indian Plate thrust stack, Pakistan Himalaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Peter J. Treloar ,
David C. Rex  and
Matthew P. Williams
Peter J. Treloar
Affiliation:
Dept of Geology, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BP, UK.
David C. Rex
Affiliation:
Dept of Earth Sciences, Leeds University, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
Matthew P. Williams
Affiliation:
Dept of Geology, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BP, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In north Pakistan cooling history data show that metamorphism within the Indian Plate predated 40 Ma, and that the post-metamorphic thrust stack developed within the crystalline internal zones had cooled to less than 100 °C by c. 18 Ma. Much of this cooling occurred during late Oligocene to early Miocene time and can be equated to substantial unroofing of the metamorphic pile. This unroofing was by a combination of erosion, recorded in Lower Miocene molasse deposits within the foreland basins, and by large scale hinterland (northward) directed extensional normal faults developed within the upper parts of the Indian Plate and within the Kohistan–India suture zone and operative as late as 20 Ma. As up to 20 km of material was removed during exhumation, substantial uplift must have been synchronous with exhumation. Part of this may be accounted for by isostatic rebound of the thickened Indian Plate, and part by uplift in the hanging wall of major south-verging thrusts developed at the base of the crystalline pile.

Type
Research Article
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 128 , Issue 5 , September 1991 , pp. 465 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

School of Geological Sciences, Kingston Polytechnic, Kingston-upon-Thames, KT1 2EE, U.K.

References

Bossart, P. & Ottiger, R. 1989. Rocks of the Murree Formation in northern Pakistan: indicators of a descending foreland basin of late Paleocene to middle Eocene age. Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae 82, 133–65.Google Scholar
Bossart, P., Dietrich, D., Greco, A., Ottiger, R. & Ramsay, J. G. 1988. The tectonic structure of the Hazara-Kashmir syntaxis, southern Himalayas, Pakistan. Tectonics 7, 273–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brodie, K. H., Rex, D. C. & Rutter, E. H. 1989. On the age of deep crustal extensional faulting in the Ivrea zone, north Italy. In Alpine Tectonics (eds Coward, M. P., Dietrich, D. and Park, R. G.), pp. 203–10. Geological Society of London, Special Publication no. 45.Google Scholar
Burbank, D. W., Raynolds, R. G. H. & Johnson, G. D. 1986. Late Cenozoic tectonics and sedimentation in the northwestern Himalayan foredeep; II, eastern limb of the northwest syntaxis and regional synthesis. In Foreland Basins (eds Allen, P. and Homewood, P.), pp. 293–306. Oxford: Blackwells.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burbank, D. W. & Beck, R. A. 1989. Early Pliocene uplift of the Salt Range; temporal constraints on thrust wedge development, northwest Himalaya, Pakistan. Geological Society of America Special Paper 232, 113–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burg, J-P., Brunel, M., Gapais, D., Chen, G. M. & Liu, G. H. 1984. Deformation of leucogranites of the crystalline Main Central Thrust sheet in southern Tibet. Journal of Structural Geology 6, 535–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, R. W. H., Coward, M. P., Harwood, G. M. & Knipe, R. J. 1987. Salt: its control on thrust geometry, structural style and gravitational collapse along the Himalayan mountain front in the Salt Range of northern Pakistan. In Dynamical Geology of Salt and Related Structures (eds O'Brien, J. J. and Lesche, I.), pp. 399–418. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Butler, R. W. H. & Coward, M. P. 1989. Crustal scale thrusting and continental subduction during Himalayan collision tectonics of the NW Indian Plate. In Tectonic Evolution of the Tethyan Region (ed. Sengor, A. M. C.), pp. 387–413. Nato ASI Series. C. Vol. 259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calkins, J. A., Offield, T. W., Abdullah, S. K. M. & Ali, S. T. 1975. Geology of the southern Himalaya in Hazara, Pakistan and adjacent areas. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 716C, 29 pp.Google Scholar
Cerveny, P. F., Johnson, N. M., Tahirkelli, R. A. K. & Bonis, N. R. 1989. Tectonic and geomorphic implications of Siwalik Group heavy minerals. Potwar Plateau, Pakistan. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 232, 129–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coward, M. P. & Butler, R. W. H. 1985. Thrust tectonics and the deep structure of the Pakistan Himalaya. Geology 13, 417–20.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coward, M. P., Butler, R. W. H., Chambers, A. F., Graham, R. H., Izatt, C. N., Khan, M. A., Knipe, R. J., Prior, D. J., Treloar, P. J. & Williams, M. P. 1988. Folding and imbrication of the Indian crust during Himalayan collision. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 326, 377–91.Google Scholar
Coward, M. P., Butler, R. W. H., Khan, M. A. & Knipe, R. J. 1987. The tectonic history of Kohistan and its implications for Himalayan structure. Journal of the Geological Society of London 144, 377–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coward, M. P., Jan, M. Q., Rex, D. C., Tarney, J., Thirwall, M. F. & Windley, B. F. 1982. Geotectonic framework of the Himalaya in NW Pakistan. Journal of the Geological Society of London 139, 299–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coward, M. P., Windley, B. F., Broughton, R. D., Luff, I. W., Petterson, M. G., Pudsey, C. J., Rex, D. C. & Khan, M. A. 1986. Collision tectonics in the NW Himalayas. In Collision Tectonics (eds Coward, M. P. and Ries, A. R.), pp. 203–19. Geological Society of London, Special Publication 19.Google Scholar
Dahlen, F. A., Suppe, J. & Davis, D. 1984. Mechanics of fold-and-thrust belts and accretionary wedges: Cohesive Coulomb theory. Journal of Geophysical Research 89, 10087–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, D., Suppe, J. & Dahlen, F. A. 1983. Mechanics of fold-and-thrust belts and accretionary wedges. Journal of Geophysical Research 88, 1153–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davy, P. & Gillet, P. 1986. The stacking of thrust slices in collision zones and its thermal consequences. Tectonics 5, 913–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, J. F., Shackleton, R. M., Chang, Chengfa & Yujin, Sun. 1988. The tectonic evolution of the Tibetan plateau. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 327, 379–413.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. F., Cande, S. & Pitman, W. C. 1989. Tectonic evolution of the India/Eurasia collision zone. Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae 82, 717–734.Google Scholar
Dodson, M. H. 1973. Closure temperatures in cooling geochronological and petrological systems. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 40, 259–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodson, M. H. & McClelland-Brown, E. 1985. Isotopic and palaeomagnetic evidence for rates of cooling, uplift and erosion. In Geochronology and the Geologic Record (ed. Snelling, N. J.), pp. 315–25. Geological Society of London, Memoir no. 10.Google Scholar
Duroy, Y., Farah, A. & Lillie, R. J. 1989. Subsurface densities and lithospheric flexure of the Himalayan foreland in Pakistan. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 232, 217–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, P. C. & Molnar, P. 1990. Surface uplift, uplift of rocks and exhumation of rocks. Geology 18, 1173–7.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, P. C. & Thompson, A. B. 1984. Pressure-temperature-time paths of regional metamorphism. 1: Heat transfer during the evolution of regions of thickened continental crust. Journal of Petrology 25, 894–928.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fletcher, C. J. N., Leake, R. C. & Haslam, H. W. 1986. Tectonic setting, mineralogy and chemistry of a metamorphosed stratiform base metal deposit within the Himalayas of Pakistan. Journal of the Geological Society of London 143, 521–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, A., Martinotti, G., Papritz, K., Ramsay, J. G. & Rey, R. 1989. The crystalline rocks of the Kaghan Valley (NE-Pakistan). Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae 82, 629–53.Google Scholar
Harrison, T. M. 1981. Diffusion of 40Ar in hornblende. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 78, 324–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, T. M., Duncan, U. & McDougall, I. 1985. Diffusion of 40Ar in biotite: temperature, pressure and compositional effects. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 49, 2461–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herren, E. 1987. Zanskar Shear Zone: northeast–southwest extension within the Higher Himalayas (Ladakh, India). Geology 15, 409–13.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodges, K. V. & Crowley, P. D. 1985. Error estimation and empirical geothermobarometry for pelitic systems. American Mineralogist 70, 702–9.Google Scholar
Hodges, K. V., Hubbard, M. S. & Silverberg, D. S. 1988. Metamorphic constraints on the thermal evolution of the central Himalayan orogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 326, 257–80.Google Scholar
Jamieson, R. A. & Beaumont, C. J. 1989. Deformation and metamorphism in convergent orogens: a model for uplift and exhumation of metamorphic terrains. In Evolution of Metamorphic Belts (eds Daly, J. S., Cliff, R. A. and Yardley, B. W. D.), pp. 117–29. Geological Society of London, Special Publication 43.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. D., Johnson, N. M., Opdyke, N. D. & Tahirkelli, R. A. K. 1979. Magnetic reversal stratigraphy and sedimentary tectonics of the Upper Siwalik Group, eastern Salt Ranges and southwestern Kashmir. In Geodynamics of Pakistan (eds Farah, A. and de Jong, K.), pp. 149–65. Quetta: Geological Survey of Pakistan.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. D., Raynolds, R. G. H. & Burbank, D. W. 1986. Late Cenozoic tectonics and sedimentation in the northwestern Himalayan foredeep; I, Thrust ramping and associated deformation in the Potwar region. In Foreland Basins (eds Allen, P. and Homewood, P.), pp. 273–91. Oxford: Blackwells.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keleman, P. B., Reuber, I. & Fuchs, G. 1988. Structural evolution and sequence of thrusting in the High Himalayan Tibetan-Tethys and Indus Suture zones of Zanskar and Ladakh, western Himalaya: discussion. Journal of Structural Geology 10, 129–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, R. D., Baig, M. S., Dilles, J. H., La Fortune, J. R., Dipietro, J., Hughes, J. J., Palmer-Rosenburg, P. S., Pogue, K., Snee, L. W., Tahirkelli, R. A. K., Ghauri, A. A. K., Jan, M. Q., Ahmad, I., Rafiq, M., Kazmi, A. A. & Hussain, A. 1989 a. Tectonics south of the suture, northern Pakistan. 24th International Geological Congress, Washington. Abstracts 2, 265.Google Scholar
Lawrence, R. D., Kazmi, A. H. & Snee, L. W. 1989. Geological setting of the emerald deposits. In Emeralds of Pakistan: Geology, Gemmology and Genesis (eds Kazmi, A. H. and Snee, L. W.), pp. 1–25, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Lillie, R. J., Johnson, G. D., Yousuf, M., Seamin, A. S. H. & Yeats, R. S. 1987. Structural development within the Himalayan fold-and-thrust belt of Pakistan. In Sedimentary Basins and Basin Forming Mechanisms (eds Beaumont, C. and Tankard, A. J.), pp. 379–92. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 12.Google Scholar
Malinconico, L. L. 1986. The structure of the Kohistan arc terrane in northern Pakistan as inferred from gravity data. Tectonophysics 124, 297–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maluski, H. & Matte, P. 1984. Ages of Alpine tectonometamorphic events in the northwestern Himalaya (northern Pakistan). Tectonics 3, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ni, J. & Barazangi, M. 1984. Seismotectonics of the Himalayan collision zone: geometry of the underthrusting Indian Plate beneath the Himalaya. Journal of Geophysical Research 89, 1147–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patriat, P. & Achache, J. 1984. India–Eurasia collision chronology has implications for crustal shortening and driving mechanisms of plates. Nature 311, 615–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pudsey, C. J., Coward, M. P., Luff, I. W., Shackleton, R. M., Windley, B. F. & Jan, M. Q. 1986. The collision zone between the Kohistan arc and the Asian Plate in NW Pakistan. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 76, 463–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purdy, J. W. & Jäger, E. 1976. K-Ar ages on rock forming minerals from the central Alps. Memoir of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Padova 30, 1–31.Google Scholar
Rex, A. J., Searle, M. P., Tirrul, R., Crawford, M. B., Prior, D. J., Rex, D. C. & Barnicoat, A. C. 1988. The geochemical and tectonic evolution of the central Karakorum, North Pakistan. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A 326, 229–255.Google Scholar
Royden, L. H. & Burchfiel, B. C. 1987. Thin skinned N-S extension within the convergent Himalayan region: gravitational collapse of a Miocene topographic front. In Continental Extensional Tectonics (eds Coward, M. P., Dewey, J. F. and Hancock, P. L.), pp. 611–19. Geological Society of London. Special Publication 28.Google Scholar
Searle, M. P. 1986. Structural evolution and sequence of thrusting in the High Himalaya, Tibetan-Tethys and Indus suture zones of Zanskar and Ladakh, western Himalaya. Journal of Structural Geology 8, 923–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, M. P. & Rex, A. J. 1989. Thermal model for the Zanskar Himalaya. Journal of Metamorphic Geology 7, 127–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, M. P., Rex, A. J., Tirrul, R., Rex, D. C., Barnicoat, A. C. & Windley, B. F. 1989. Metamorphic, magmatic, and tectonic evolution of the central Karakorum in the Biafo-Baltoro-Hushe regions of northern Pakistan. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 232, 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J., Brodie, K. H., Coward, M. O., Jan, M. Q., Khan, M. A., Knipe, R. J., Rex, D. C. & Williams, M. P. 1990. The evolution of the Kamila Shear Zone, Kohistan, Pakistan. In Exposed Sections of the Continental Crust (eds Salisbury, M. H. and Fountain, D. M.), pp. 175–214. Kluwer Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J. & Rex, D. C. 1990 a. Cooling and uplift histories of the crystalline thrust stack of the Indian Plate internal zones west of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan Himalaya. Tectonophysics 189, 323–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J. & Rex, D. C. 1990 b. Post-metamorphic cooling history of the Indian Plate crystalline thrust stack, Pakistan Himalaya. Journal of the Geological Society of London 147, 735–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J., Rex, D. C., Guise, P. G., Coward, M. P., Searle, M. P., Petterson, M. G., Windley, B. F., Jan, M. Q. & Luff, I. W. 1989 a K-Ar and Ar-Argeochronology of the Himalayan collision in NW Pakistan: constraints on the timing of collision, deformation, metamorphism and uplift. Tectonics 8, 881–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J., Williams, M. P., Coward, M. P. & Khan, M. A. 1989 b. Basement-cover imbrication south of the Main Mantle Thrust, North Pakistan. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 232, 137–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J., Broughton, R. D., Williams, M. P., Coward, M. P. & Windley, B. F. 1989 c Deformation, metamorphism and imbrication of the Indian Plate, south of the Main Mantle Thrust, North Pakistan. Journal of Metamorphic Geology 7, 111–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treloar, P. J., Williams, M. P. & Coward, M. P. 1989. Metamorphism and crustal stacking in the north Indian plate, North Pakistan. Tectonophysics 165, 167–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadia, D. N. 1931. The syntaxis of the northwest Himalaya: its rocks, tectonics and orogeny. Records of the Geological Survey of India 65, 189–220.Google Scholar
Yeats, R. S. & Hussain, A. 1987. Timing of structural events in the Himalayan foothills of northwestern Pakistan. Geological Society of America Bulletin 99, 161–76.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeitler, P. K. 1985. Cooling history of the NW Himalaya. Tectonics 4, 127–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar