Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
The Cenozoic weathering of peninsular India has been advocated as a major driver of globalcooling, however, its timing remains virtually unconstrained such that proposed links betweentropical weathering of the Deccan Traps, regional monsoonal intensity and global climate remainsspeculative. To solve this conundrum we present here a revised weathering chronologybased on the identification of lateritic paleosurfaces and their dating using 40Ar/39Ar on supergeneK-rich manganese oxides. We focus on the Indian western passive margin where theWestern Ghats Escarpment (WGE) – a ~1000 m high topographic barrier resulting from thecontinental break up of Greater India – exposes exceptionally preserved weathering profilesfrom the western coastal lowlands to the eastern highland plateaus above the WGE. Four mainlateritic paleosurfaces have been identified: Three in the highland; a high landsurface (Al-Femostly bauxite) at elevation 1200-1000 m asl, an intermediate landsurface covered by a Feduricrustat 1000-900 m asl and a lower pediment landsurface at 850-600 m asl; and one inthe coastal lowland underneath a pediment landsurface at 150-50 m asl. The 40Ar/39Ar agesdocument three major weathering periods over the Cenozoic. The oldest weathering period(W1) is recorded between 53 Ma to 45 Ma both in the highland and the lowland. This correlatesto the Global Eocene climatic Optimum, and allows defining a bauxitic paleolandsurface acrossthe escarpment. Intense bauxitic weathering between ~ 45 and 47 Ma in the lowland indicatethat the WGE was stabilized before ~ 47 Ma on its margin and also implies low denudation rateat the foot of the WGE (<5 m Ma-1) since that time. The second weathering period between37 Ma to 19 Ma (W2) occurred in two distinctive stages (W2a and W2b). From 37 to 26 (W2a),weathering is only recorded in the highland and affect intermediate surfaces. The intensityof chemical weathering decreased sensibly between 32 and 29 Ma – potentially linked to theEarly Oligocene cooling – and resulted in the formation of the lower pediment surface. From~26 Ma to 19 Ma (W2b), only the western coastal lowland weathered while the highland surfacesare mostly dissected. This change and the highland/lowland weathering mitigation after~26 Ma documents a change in climatic patterns over peninsular India that signs the onset ofmodern-like monsoon regime. These results are being interpolated to the Deccan Traps basaltsto quantify their weathering and ultimately estimate of the contribution to CO2 fluxes of thesethree weathering periods and their potential link to Asian Monsoons and global cooling.
Source to Sink: a long term perspective of sediment budgets and sources characterization, Abstracts
Rennes, France

insu-01406455
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01406455

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
At the time of the collision with India (55Ma), the southern margin of Asia was a composite continental domainresulting from an already long history of successive accretions of different terranes having different rheologies.Knowledge about the structure, composition and thermal state of the Tibetan lithosphere through time is thusfundamental to understand the respective contributions of pre-Cenozoïc and Cenozoïc tectonics in the building ofthe Plateau to its present-day elevations.We focused on the boundary between the Qiangtang terrane to the south, and the Songpan-Ganze terrane to thenorth.We jointly studied deep crustal xenoliths and associated (ultra-)potassic magmatism from the Eocene basinsof Nangqian and Xialaxiu (Qinghai Province, China), north of the Qiangtang terrane. The aims were to retrievethe composition and the thermal state of the lower crust during Eocene times, to study the behavior of the lowercrust and lithospheric mantle of the Eastern Qiangtang terrane and the adjacent Songpan-Ganze terrane at the timeof the collision, and the link with the magmatic activity.Crustal xenoliths are of two types: biotite-rich, amphibole bearing metasediments; and garnet-bearing quartzofeldspathicgneisses. Such assemblages are typical of very high-grade amphibolite and granulite faciesmetamorphism; further study should allow us to quantify the pressures and temperatures those rocks experienceduntil the time they were sampled by their host lavas.Major element geochemistry places the c.a. 51-49 Ma (Spurlin et al., 2005) Xialaxiu volcanic field in a fairlydifferentiated (SiO265-70 wt%) high-K field of the calc-alcaline series. Trace element analysis suggests a strongcrustal contamination of the primary mantellic melts. C.a. 38-37 Ma (Spurlin et al., 2005) Nangqian magmaticbodies span across the alkaline series, with high to extreme (K2O6wt%) values. Complex major and traceelement patterns, coupled with high-resolution microprobe data on pyroxene xenocrysts, suggest that enrichmentoccurred at the source by metasomatism of the lithospheric mantle.Further work will precise which mechanisms could have accounted for such a metasomatism of the mantle beneaththe Northern Qiangtang terrane during Eocene, and whether the lower crust had an autochtonous or allochtonousnature.
Geophysical Research Abstracts
Vienne, Austria

insu-01308919
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01308919