Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Résumé : International audience
The present-day topography of the Tian Shan range is considered to result from crustal shortening related to the ongoing India-Asia collision that started in the early Tertiary. In this study we report evidence for several episodes of localized tectonic activity which occurred prior to that major orogenic event. Apatite fission track analysis and (U-Th)/He dating on apatite and zircon indicate that inherited Paleozoic structures were reactivated in the late Paleozoic-early Mesozoic during a Cimmerian orogenic episode and also in the Late Cretaceous-Paleogene (around 65-60 Ma). These reactivations could have resulted from the accretion of the Kohistan-Dras arc or lithospheric extension in the Siberia-Mongolia zone. Activity resumed in the late Mesozoic prior to the major Tertiary orogenic phase. Finally, the ongoing deformation, which again reactivates inherited tectonic structures, tends to propagate inside the endoreic basins that were preserved in the range, leading to their progressive closure. This study demonstrates the importance of inherited structures in localizing the first increments of the deformation before it propagates into yet undeformed areas.
ISSN: 0278-7407

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
hal-00551323
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00551323
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00551323/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00551323/file/2010TC002712.pdf
DOI : 10.1029/2010TC002712

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Résumé : International audience
The Tian Shan Mountains constitute central Asia's longest and highest mountain range. Understanding their Cenozoic uplift history thus bears on mountain building processes in general, and on how deformation has occurred under the influence of the India-Asia collision in particular. In order to help decipher the uplift history of the Tian Shan, we collected 970 samples for magnetostratigraphic analysis along a 4571-m-thick section at the Jingou River (Xinjiang Province, China). Stepwise alternating field and thermal demagnetization isolate a linear magnetization component that is interpreted as primary. From this component, a magnetostratigraphic column composed of 67 polarity chrons are correlated with the reference geomagnetic polarity timescale between ~1 Ma and ~23.6 Ma, with some uncertainty below ~21 Ma. This correlation places precise temporal control on the Neogene stratigraphy of the southern Junggar Basin and provides evidence for two significant stepwise increases in sediment accumulation rate at ~16–15 Ma and ~11–10 Ma. Rock magnetic parameters also undergo important changes at ~16–15 Ma and ~11–10 Ma that correlate with changes in sedimentary depositional environments. Together with previous work, we conclude that growth history of the modern Tian Shan Mountains includes two pulses of uplift and erosion at ~16–15 Ma and ~11–10 Ma. Middle to upper Tertiary rocks around the Tian Shan record very young (<~5 Ma) counterclockwise paleomagnetic rotations, on the order of 15° to 20°, which are interpreted as because of strain partitioning with a component of sinistral shear that localized rotations in the piedmont.
ISSN: 0278-7407

insu-00376345
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376345
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376345/document
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376345/file/2007TC002137.pdf
DOI : 10.1029/2007TC002137

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
A suite of eclogite xenoliths from the Roberts Victor kimberlite (South Africa) is remarkable for its high abundances of base metal sulfides (BMS; up to 2 modal %). However, while sulfides are nearly ubiquitous in Type I eclogites (garnet > 0.07% Na2O), Type II eclogites (garnet < 0.07% Na2O) systematically lack sulfides. Two different sulfide assemblages are recognised within the Type I xenolith suite. Both populations are polyphase Cu-Ni-Fe sulfides, one characterised by the pyrrhotite (Po) + pentlandite (Pn) + chalcopyrite (Cp) assemblage and the other by the smythite/violarite (Smy/Vi) + (Ni)pyrite (Py) + Cp assemblage. The latter is the most abundant assemblage and reflects the supergene alteration of the "primary" Po + Pn + Cp assemblage. This process overprints the original composition of the sulfides by remobilising elements such as S, Fe, Ni, Se and Te. In the Type I eclogites, BMS occur as inclusions within silicates (garnet and clinopyroxene) and as interstitial grains. No chemical differences were observed between enclosed and interstitial sulfides. However, their relative abundances are correlated, indicating a similar origin. The Po + Pn + Cp assemblage is identical to eclogitic sulfides previously described in some Roberts Victor diamonds. Silicate-enclosed sulfides could appear to be early phases, but they are restricted to the outer parts of the silicate grains, suggesting a late incorporation during partial recrystallisation of silicate phases, induced by fluid-rock percolation-reaction during a metasomatic event. Positive whole-rock correlations between Se and (La/Sm)N⁎ and between Cu and ΣLREEN⁎ indicate a direct link between sulfide content and the enrichment of Mg + incompatible elements in the Type I eclogites, further supporting a metasomatic origin of the sulfide component. Similarly, a negative correlation between ΣLREEN⁎ and Cucpx implies that the metasomatic agent was at least partially composed of S-rich fluid (e.g. H2S, SO2) that reacted with the rock and leached Cu out of the silicates. The coupling between sulfides and LREE in the Type I eclogites, as well as the absence of sulfides and metasomatic features (e.g. unequilibrated grain boundaries, melt pockets, fluid inclusions, phlogopite) in the Type II eclogites, demonstrate that Type II eclogites did not undergo such a metasomatic event and therefore may represent the less-modified protoliths of Type I eclogites.
ISSN: 0009-2541

hal-00903856
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00903856
DOI : 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2013.06.015