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Crustal-scale duplexing beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture in the western Himalaya

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 555–560 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The fate of the Indian plate during continental collision with Asian terranes, and the proportion of the Indian crust that is underthrust or subducted beneath Tibet as opposed to transferred to the upper (Himalayan) plate, are much debated. The active geometry of low-angle underthrusting or subduction of the Indian plate beneath the Lesser and Greater Himalayan thrust sheets is well known from seismic imaging. Previously, only lower-resolution images of the Main Himalayan Thrust have been obtained beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture that separates Indian and Asian rocks at the surface. It remains controversial whether the orogenic wedge between the Main Himalayan Thrust and the Yarlung Zangbo suture, formed of Indian crust transferred to the upper plate, is evolving by thrust-faulting in a critical-taper wedge or by southward extrusion of a ductile channel flow. Here we present a seismic reflection profile across the western Himalaya at 81.5° E, and show that the Main Himalayan Thrust dips ∼20° to ∼60 km depth beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture, approaching a continuous Moho reflection at ∼70–75 km depth. The Indian crust being transported northwards beyond the Yarlung Zangbo suture is no more than ∼15 km thick, reduced from its original ∼40 km thickness by transfer of material from the lower plate to the upper plate through crustal-scale duplexing.

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Figure 1: Geologic setting for reflection profile HKT-B.
Figure 2: Pre-stack time migration of reflection profile HKT-B.
Figure 3: Subduction/accretion style beneath the YZS.

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Change history

  • 17 June 2016

    In the version of the Article originally published, in the Acknowledgements section the first National Natural Science Foundation of China grant number should have been 41574091. This has been corrected in all versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Ministry of Land and Resources of China through SinoProbe (SinoProbe-02-01), by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41574091, 41590863 and 41430213), and by the National Key Research and Development Project ‘Deep structure and mineralization process of the collisional orogenic metallogenic system in Tibet’. We thank the Fifth Geophysical Prospecting Company of Southwest Petroleum Bureau and Beijing Petrosound Geoservice, Ltd, for their part in acquiring and processing the seismic data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of EarthProbe and Geodynamics, MLR, Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China

    Rui Gao, Zhanwu Lu, Haiyan Wang, Wenhui Li & Hongqiang Li

  2. College of Geo-Exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China

    Rui Gao

  3. Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2215, USA

    Simon L. Klemperer

  4. Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China

    Shuwen Dong

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  1. Rui Gao
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Contributions

R.G., Z.L. and S.L.K. conceived this study, and R.G. and S.D. managed the project. Z.L., H.W., W.L. and H.L. supervised data acquisition and data processing. S.L.K. wrote the first draft of the paper, following discussion with, and contributions from, all authors. S.L.K. designed and drafted the figures.

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Correspondence to Zhanwu Lu or Simon L. Klemperer.

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Gao, R., Lu, Z., Klemperer, S. et al. Crustal-scale duplexing beneath the Yarlung Zangbo suture in the western Himalaya. Nature Geosci 9, 555–560 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2730

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