Geochemical Characterization of Serpentinized Peridotites from the Shergol Ophiolitic Slice along the Indus Suture Zone (ISZ), Ladakh Himalaya, India

Alteration of primary Cr-spinel mineral composition from the Suru Valley ophiolitic peridotites, Ladakh Himalaya: Their low-temperature metamorphic implications

“…The regional geology of the study area is described in detail in our published papers (Bhat et al 2017a(Bhat et al , b, 2018(Bhat et al , 2019a and references therein), here we explain the geological setup of the Suru Valley ophiolitic slice. The present peridotite samples were obtained from the Suru Valley ophiolitic slice along ISZ, outcropped at Trespone village of Kargil district Ladakh Himalaya (figure 1).…”

“…The Neo-Tethys Ocean once separating Indian and Eurasian landmasses during Mesozoic start closing by the initiation of intraoceanic island arcs thereby collision between continental margins and created suture zones outlined by ophiolites (Gansser 1980;Searle et al 1987;Aitchison et al 2000Aitchison et al , 2002Aitchison et al , 2007Clift et al 2002;Maheo et al 2004Maheo et al , 2006Ahmad et al 2008;Buckman et al 2018). These ophiolite slices are distributed along the Indus Suture Zone (ISZ) as dismembered ophiolite slices and from south-east to north-west are Nidar ophiolite sequence (Maheo et al 2004;Ahmad et al 2008), Spongtang ophiolite (Clift et al 2002;Maheo et al 2004;Buckman et al 2018 and reference therein), Shergol ophiolitic slice (Honegger et al 1989;Mishra 1992, 1994;Maheo et al 2006;Bhat et al 2017aBhat et al , b, 2018, Suru Valley ophiolitic slice (Reuber 1989;Robertson 2000;Bhat et al 2019a) and Dras ophiolite (Radhakrishna et al 1984(Radhakrishna et al , 1987. The Indus ophiolite belt extends westward to Pakistan, Iraq, Iran up to Turkey and eastward to Tibet, Nagaland-Manipur up to Indonesia (Hall 1997;Bortolotti and Principi 2005;Dilek and Furnes 2009) and these ophiolites are classified as Tethyan type ophiolites by Moores et al (2000).…”

Petrological and geochemical characterization of the arc-related Suru–Thasgam ophiolitic slice along the Indus Suture Zone, Ladakh Himalaya

“…Ophiolites of Mesozoic age are exposed along the IYTS (Fig. 1a) and represent remnants of the eastern portion of the Neo-Tethyan Ocean (Maheo et al 2004;Ahmad et al 2008;Dilek & Furnes, 2009Aitchison et al 2011;Bhat et al 2017aBhat et al , 2019aBuckman et al 2018). In Ladakh Himalaya (Fig.…”

“…1a), the ophiolitic slices from NW to SE are: Dras ophiolitic slice (Radhakrishna et al 1984(Radhakrishna et al , 1987; Suru Valley ophiolitic slice (Robertson, 2000;Bhat et al 2019b); Shergol ophiolitic slice (Bhat et al 2017a(Bhat et al , b, 2019c; Spongtang ophiolite complex (Maheo et al 2004); and Nidar ophiolitic complex (Ahmad et al 1996(Ahmad et al , 2008. These ophiolites are highly dismembered, similar to other Tethyan ophiolites (Moores et al 2000), and are emplaced as imbricate blocks thrust over the Mesozoic Dras arc complex comprising Dras volcanics and Nindam/Naktul Formations (Honegger et al 1982;Radhakrishna et al 1984;Reuber, 1989;Robertson, 2000;Maheo et al 2006;Bhat et al 2017aBhat et al , 2019a. Earlier workers suggested that these rootless sub-horizontal bodies of ophiolites from Ladakh Himalaya represent substratum of the Dras arc complex (e.g.…”

“…Well-studied Mesozoic Neo-Tethyan ophiolitic sequences are exposed along the northern Indian plate margin, that is, Indus Yarlung Tsangbo Suture (IYTS; Hebert et al 2012;Liu et al 2016;Bhat et al 2017aBhat et al , 2019aKingson et al 2017;Xiong et al 2017;Buckman et al 2018;Jadoon et al 2020). However, due to extreme high altitude (average height 3000 m) and poor accessibility to the Ladakh terrain, especially Kargil region of western Ladakh, limited research work has been carried out on the western Ladakh ophiolites, particularly on Suru-Thasgam dismembered ophiolitic slice, thrust over the Dras arc complex.…”