The cretaceous Ladakh arc of NW himalaya—slab melting and melt–mantle interaction during fast northward drift of Indian Plate

Early–Middle Eocene Exhumation of the Trans-Himalayan Ladakh Batholith, and the India–Asia Convergence

“…LB is bound by the Indus Tsangpo Suture Zone (ITSZ) along its southern margin, while the Shyok Suture Zone (SSZ) frames its northern margin. These sutures demarcate Early Cretaceous subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere 28 and closure of this ocean between the Indian and Asian Plates 24,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35] ( Figure 1 a and b). The batholith trends WNW-ESE for nearly 600 km in a 30-80 km wide belt (Figure 1 b), with an exposed thickness of ~2 km.…”

Geological map of the Karakoram fault zone, Eastern Karakoram, Ladakh, NW Himalaya

“…Prior to this, Hedin (1909Hedin ( -1913, Dainelli (1933), Rai (1982), Rai (1983), Rai (1986), Gergan and Pant (1983), Choudhury (1983), Thakur and Misra (1984), Srimal (1986a), Srimal (1986b) and Bagati et al (1994) provided initial descriptions of the geology and stratigraphy of the Eastern Karakoram. More recently, a number of researchers have undertaken limited geochemical and geochronological analysis of the area Searle et al, 1998;Sinha et al, 1999;Uphadhyay et al, 1999;Rolland and Pêcher, 2001;Rolland et al, 2002). Subsequently, Phillips (2004), Rutter et al (2007), Searle and Phillips (2007) and Phillips and Searle (2007) have undertaken more detailed analytical studies.…”

40Ar–39Ar dating of volcanic rocks of the Shyok suture zone in north–west trans-Himalaya: Implications for the post-collision evolution of the Shyok suture zone

“…Calc-alkaline to tholeiitic components were reported from Kohistan-Ladakh arc in the north-west trans-Himalaya (Rolland et al, 2000(Rolland et al, , 2002. The pioneering geochronological studies by Honegger et al (1982) showed that the magmatism started at least 100 Ma ago and continued till the continent-continent collision.…”

“…However, these could not be well correlated spatially and temporally and have been difficult to assign to any one tectonic setting (Robertson and Collins, 2002). Rolland et al (2002), based on geochemistry and comparing the paleontological data attempted first such correlation. These volcanic rocks are exposed in narrow longitudinal belt which appears to be continuous from NW Pakistan to Skardu region to Ladakh sector of India.…”

“…While it appears to be overlain by the Eocene Shyok Molasse (Rai, 1983), on the basis of K-Ar ages (Sharma and Gupta, 1978), they have been assigned to Oligocene (Thakur and Misra, 1984). Rolland et al (2002) showed that these volcanics are cross-cut by Ladakh intrusives and therefore must be older. Dunlap and Wysoczanski (2002) published SHRIMP zircon ages from two samples of these volcanics.…”