Timing of the collision between India and Asia is the key boundary condition in all models for the evolution of the Himalaya-Tibetan orogenic system. Thus it profoundly affects the interpretation of the rates of a multitude of associated geological processes ranging from Tibetan Plateau uplift through continental extrusion across eastern Asia, as well as our understanding of global climate change during the Cenozoic. Although an abrupt slowdown in the rate of convergence between India and Asia around 55 Ma is widely regarded as indicating the beginning of the collision, most of the effects attributed to this major tectonic episode do not occur until more than 20 Ma later. Refined estimates of the relative positions of India and Asia indicate that they were not close enough to one another to have collided at 55 Ma. On the basis of new field evidence from Tibet and a reassessment of published data we suggest that continent-continent collision began around the Eocene/Oligocene boundary (∼34 Ma) and propose an alternative explanation for events at 55 Ma.

/pdf/when-and-where-did-india-and-asia-collide-35kwcb85hq.pdf

When and where did India and Asia collide

http://www.igg.cas.cn/xwzx/yjcg/200910/W020091020357735122250.pdf

Zircon U-Pb geochronology and Hf isotopic constraints on petrogenesis of the Gangdese batholith, southern Tibet

[1] Uppermost Cretaceous to Eocene marine sedimentary sequences occur both to the south and north of the Yarlung Zangbo suture in south central Tibet. They consist of Indian-margin strata of the northern Tethyan Himalaya and Asian-margin strata of the Gangdese forearc. Both assemblages are characterized by major changes in depositional environment and sedimentary provenance at ∼65 Ma and an appearance of detrital chromium-rich spinel of ophiolite affinity (TiO2 generally <0.1 wt%) during the Paleocene. Ophiolitic melange exposed along the suture could have provided a source for detrital spinel. The melange occurs in the hanging wall of a north dipping, south directed mylonitic shear zone which includes a tectonic sliver of mafic schist. Amphibole from the schist yields 40Ar/39Ar ages of ∼63 Ma, which we attribute to cooling during slip along the shear zone and southward obduction of the melange. Melange obduction was coeval with the development of an angular unconformity within the Gangdese forearc basin to the north (between late Maastrichtian time and ∼62 Ma). Upper Paleocene to middle Eocene sandstones in the northern Tethyan Himalaya yield 200–120 Ma U-Pb detrital zircon ages and 190–170 Ma 40Ar/39Ar detrital mica ages. These detrital grains were most likely sourced from regions north of the Yarlung Zangbo suture, suggesting that onset of India-Asia collision in south central Tibet is middle Eocene or older in age. Collectively, our results support previous suggestions that oceanic rocks were obducted onto the northern margin of India during latest Cretaceous–earliest Tertiary time. Coeval changes in Gangdese forearc sedimentation raise the possibility that this obduction event marks onset of tectonic interaction between India and Asia at ∼65 Ma. Alternatively, in concert with the conventional view of Eocene collision initiation, the obducted oceanic rocks may be of intraoceanic origin, while coeval changes in Gangdese forearc sedimentation may be a consequence of an increase in the rate of ocean-continent convergence following the demise of the intraoceanic subduction zone.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2004TC001729

Paleocene–Eocene record of ophiolite obduction and initial India‐Asia collision, south central Tibet

The timing of India-Asia collision onset – Facts, theories, controversies

The Himalayan-Tibetan orogen culminated during the Cenozoic India – Asia collision, but its geological framework and initial growth were fundamentally the result of multiple, previous ocean closure and intercontinental suturing events. As such, the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen provides an ideal laboratory to investigate geological signatures of the suturing process in general, and how the Earth9s highest and largest orogenic feature formed in specific. This paper synthesizes the Triassic through Cenozoic geology of the central Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and presents our tectonic interpretations in a time series of schematic lithosphere-scale cross-sections and paleogeographic maps. We suggest that north-dipping subducting slabs beneath Asian continental terranes associated with closure of the Paleo-, Meso-, and Neo-Tethys oceans experienced phases of southward trench retreat prior to intercontinental suturing. These trench retreat events created ophiolites in forearc extensional settings and/or a backarc oceanic basins between rifted segments of upper-plate continental margin arcs. This process may have occurred at least three times along the southern Asian margin during northward subduction of Neo-Tethys oceanic lithosphere: from ∼174 to 156 Ma; 132 to 120 Ma; and 90 to 70 Ma. At most other times, the Tibetan terranes underwent Cordilleran-style or collisional contractional deformation. Geological records indicate that most of northern and central Tibet (the Hoh-Xil and Qiangtang terranes, respectively) were uplifted above sea level by Jurassic time, and southern Tibet (the Lhasa terrane) north of its forearc region has been above sea level since ∼100 Ma. Stratigraphic evidence indicates that the northern Himalayan margin of India collided with an Asian-affinity subduction complex – forearc – arc system beginning at ∼60 Ma. Both the Himalaya (composed of Indian crust) and Tibet show continuous geological records of orogenesis since ∼60 Ma. As no evidence exists in the rock record for a younger suture, the simplest interpretation of the geology is that India – Asia collision initiated at ∼60 Ma. Plate circuit, paleomagnetic, and structural reconstructions, however, suggest that the southern margin of Asia was too far north of India to have collided with it at that time. Seismic tomographic images are also suggestive of a second, more southerly Neo-Tethyan oceanic slab in the lower mantle where the northernmost margin of India may have been located at ∼60 Ma. The geology of Tibet and the India – Asia suture zone permits an alternative collision scenario in which the continental margin arc along southern Asia (the Gangdese arc) was split by extension beginning at ∼90 Ma, and along with its forearc to the south (the Xigaze forearc), rifted southward and opened a backarc ocean basin. The rifted arc collided with India at ∼60 Ma whereas the hypothetical backarc ocean basin may not have been consumed until ∼45 Ma. A compilation of igneous age data from Tibet shows that the most recent phase of Gangdese arc magmatism in the southern Lhasa terrane initiated at ∼70 Ma, peaked at ∼51 Ma, and terminated at ∼38 Ma. Cenozoic potassic-adakitic magmatism initiated at ∼45 Ma within a ∼200-km-wide elliptical area within the northern Qiangtang terrane, after which it swept westward and southward with time across central Tibet until ∼26 Ma. At 26 to 23 Ma, potassic-adakitic magmatism swept southward across the Lhasa terrane, a narrow (∼20 km width), orogen-parallel basin developed at low elevation along the axis of the India – Asia suture zone (the Kailas basin), and Greater Himalayan Sequence rocks began extruding southward between the South Tibetan Detachment and Main Central Thrust. The Kailas basin was then uplifted to >4 km elevation by ∼20 Ma, after which parts of the India – Asia suture zone and Gangdese arc experienced >6 km of exhumation (between ∼20 and 16 Ma). Between ∼16 and 12 Ma, slip along the South Tibetan Detachment terminated and east-west extension initiated in the northern Himalaya and Tibet. Potassic-adakitic magmatism in the Lhasa terrane shows a northward younging trend in the age of its termination, beginning at 20 to 18 Ma until volcanism ended at 8 Ma. We interpret the post-45 Ma geological evolution in the context of the subduction dynamics of Indian continental lithosphere and its interplay with delamination of Asian mantle lithosphere.

Mesozoic─Cenozoic geological evolution of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and working tectonic hypotheses

The Xigaze forearc basin: evolution and facies architecture (Cretaceous, Tibet)

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The Xigaze forearc basin: evolution and facies architecture (Cretaceous, Tibet)