Based on a 2 year seismic record from a local network, we characterize the deformation of the seismogenic crust of the Pamir in the northwestern part of the India-Asia collision zone. We located more than 6000 upper crustal earthquakes in a regional 3-D velocity model. For 132 of these events, we determined source mechanisms, mostly through full waveform moment tensor inversion of locally and regionally recorded seismograms. We also produced a new and comprehensive neotectonic map of the Pamir, which we relate to the seismic deformation. Along Pamir’s northern margin, where GPS measurements show significant shortening, we find thrust and dextral strike-slip faulting along west to northwest trending planes, indicating slip partitioning between northward thrusting and westward extrusion. An active, north-northeast trending, sinistral transtensional fault system dissects the Pamir’s interior, connecting the lakes Karakul and Sarez, and extends by distributed faulting into the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. East of this lineament, the Pamir moves northward en bloc, showing little seismicity and internal deformation. The western Pamir exhibits a higher amount of seismic deformation; sinistral strike-slip faulting on northeast trending or conjugate planes and normal faulting indicate east-west extension and north-south shortening. We explain this deformation pattern by the gravitational collapse of the western Pamir Plateau margin and the lateral extrusion of Pamir rocks into the Tajik-Afghan depression, where it causes thin-skinned shortening of basin sediments above an evaporitic décollement. Superposition of Pamir’s bulk northward movement and collapse and westward extrusion of its western flank causes the gradual change of surface velocity orientations from north-northwest to due west observed by GPS geodesy. The distributed shear deformation of the western Pamir and the activation of the Sarez-Karakul fault system may ultimately be caused by the northeastward propagation of India’s western transform margin into Asia, thereby linking deformation in the Pamir all the way to the Chaman fault in the south in Afghanistan.

Seismotectonics of the Pamir

The deep crustal deformation in the east Pamir in response to Cenozoic collision with the Tien Shan and Tarim Basin is so far poorly constrained. We present new insights into the crustal structure ...

Deep Crustal Contact Between the Pamir and Tarim Basin Deduced From Receiver Functions

In this study, we investigate the age and geochemical variability of volcanic arc rocks found in the Chinese, Kyrgyz, and Tajik North Pamir in Central Asia New geochemical and geochronological data together with compiled data from the literature give a holistic view of an early to mid-Carboniferous intraoceanic arc preserved in the northeastern Pamir This North Pamir volcanic arc complex involves continental slivers in its western reaches and transforms into a Cordilleran-style collision zone with arc-magmatic rocks These are hosted in part by Devonian to Carboniferous oceanic crust and the metamorphic Kurguvad basement block of Ediacaran age (maximum deposition age) in Tajikistan We discuss whether a sliver of Carboniferous subduction-related basalts and intruded tonalites close to the Chinese town of Mazar was part of the same arc LA-ICP-MS U-Pb dating of zircons, together with whole rock geochemistry derived from tonalitic to granodioritic intrusions, reveals a major Visean to Bashkirian intrusive phase between 340 and 320 Ma ago This clearly postdates Paleozoic arc-magmatic activity in the West Kunlun by ~100 Ma This observation, along with geochemical evidence for a more pronounced mantle component in the Carboniferous arc-magmatic rocks of the North Pamir, disagrees with the common model of a continuous Kunlun belt from the West Kunlun into the North Pamir Moreover, Paleozoic oceanic units younger than and west of the Tarim cratonic crust challenge the idea of a continuous cratonic Tarim-Tajik continent beneath the Pamir

/pdf/the-carboniferous-arc-of-the-north-pamir-1wrk698545.pdf

The Carboniferous arc of the north Pamir

Significance Defining the size of Greater India is a critical parameter needed to reconstruct the kinematics and timing of the India–Asia collision. This article resolves discrepant interpretations surrounding the age and paleogeography of the Sangdanlin section, which was part of Greater India, now sandwiched between the Indian and Asian plates. Our geologic data clarify the ages of the rocks at Sangdanlin, while paleogeographic reconstructions stemming from our paleomagnetic data and revised age model demonstrate Greater India extended 2,000 to 3,000 km as a single plate before subducting under Asia. The existence of such a large crustal area argues against scenarios advocating that the Neotethys Ocean was subdivided into numerous, independent tectonic blocks that subsequently accreted to the southern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.

Strengthening the argument for a large Greater India.

The Missing Magmatic Arc in a Long-Lived Ocean From the Western Kunlun- Pamir Paleo-Tethys Realm

Was the Pamir salient built along a Late Paleozoic embayment on the southern Asian margin

Muztaghata Dome Miocene Eclogite Facies Metamorphism: A Record of Lower Crustal Evolution of the NE Pamir

The India-Asia collision results from two possible pre-collisional crustal configurations of northern Greater India

One of the most striking geologic features of the Pamir is the south-dipping lithospheric slab beneath the orogen characterized by an intracontinental Wadati-Benioff zone. A widely accepted hypothesis over the past 40 years interprets the slab to represent southward subducted cratonic Asian continental lithosphere, which predicts significant cratonic Asia-sourced crustal materials (e.g., Tarim Basin) beneath the Pamir. Alternatively, recent studies have interpreted the slab to be lithosphere delaminated from the base of the Pamir. To test these hypotheses, depth-tectonic affinity relations of crustal xenoliths carried by Miocene volcanic rocks in the eastern Pamir, interpreted to be sourced from the Pamir deep lithosphere, are used to determine whether they represented Asian affinity cratonic crust. Thermodynamic calculations, zircon U-Pb geochronology combined with rare earth element analysis, and whole-rock major-trace element and Sr-Nd isotopic analyses document that: 1) eclogite and pyroxenite xenoliths (~31–43 kbar/ ~960–1170°C) are the deepest sourced portions of the lithosphere from ~100–140 km depth, the protoliths of which represent the mid-lower crustal rocks of the Cretaceous Pamir magmatic arc, rather than material from cratonic Asia; and 2) granulite xenoliths (~20 kbar/~900°C) represent the Cenozoic lower crustal rocks of Pamir terranes from ~70 km depth. These results indicate the south-dipping slab represents delaminated Pamir lower crust and mantle lithosphere, rather than intracontinental subduction of Asian lithosphere and further support the hypothesis of minimal Cenozoic northward translation of the Pamir. 

Was Cratonic Asia Deeply Subducted beneath the Pamir? Evidence from P‐T Conditions and Tectonic Affinities of Cenozoic Pamir Crustal Xenoliths

Different crustal deformation histories between Tibet and the Pamir reflect along‐strike variations in geodynamics of the Tethys orogen. To investigate the less well‐documented deformation history of the Pamir, which has been a barrier in understanding the nature of these differences, we conducted an integrated study in the Kurgovat‐Vanch region, NW Pamir. The lithologies are primarily Ediacaran‐to‐Carboniferous metasedimentary rocks intruded by Carboniferous plutons, which then experienced Late Triassic to Early Jurassic regional metamorphism. Structural mapping and analyses document a low‐angle NW‐directed thrust fault, the Poshkharv thrust, separating the overlying upper‐greenschist facies Poshkharv complex from the underlying amphibolite facies Kurgovat complex. Regional geologic maps indicate the Poshkharv thrust continues for ∼300 km across the NW Pamir. Our study also documents another regional thrust fault, the top‐to‐the‐SE Vanch thrust that juxtaposes the Southern Kurgovat complex above the lower‐grade Vanch complex in the south. Biotite 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology indicates Early Cretaceous movement on all structures with ∼135–125 Ma exhumation along the NW‐directed Poshkharv thrust and ∼125–115 Ma exhumation along the SE‐directed Vanch thrust. Regional crustal deformation in the Northern Pamir was formed in a Cretaceous retro‐arc setting, unrelated to the Cenozoic India‐Asia collision. Cretaceous deformation in the NW Pamir was broadly coeval with the NE Pamir, but preceded Cretaceous shortening and coeval arc magmatism in the Southern Pamir. We interpret Early Cretaceous thrusting and crustal thickening followed by southward migration of shortening and magmatic flare‐up in the Pamir to have resulted from a transition of Neotethys subduction from northward flat‐slab advancing to southward retreating.

Mesozoic Tectonic Evolution in the Kurgovat‐Vanch Complex, NW Pamir

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