Cretaceous uplift history of the Tibetan Plateau: Insights from the transition of marine to terrestrial facies in central Tibet

Abstract

The uplift of the Tibetan Plateau has been widely associated with India-Asia continental collision during the Cenozoic. However, recent studies have proposed that a proto-Tibetan Plateau in central Tibet was elevated during the late Mesozoic. This paper improves that understanding by focusing on the Cretaceous terrestrial strata in the Gerze area of central Tibet. Our studies suggest that the Qushenla Formation in the Nare area contains alluvial fan conglomerate intercalated with rhyolitic ignimbrite and vesicular rhyolite. Zircon UPb dating of rhyolitic ignimbrite (103.9 ± 1.4 Ma) and two granitoid boulders of conglomerate (106.0 ± 1.6 and 106.1 ± 1.5) indicate that the Qushenla Formation was deposited during the late Albian. The compositions of the Qushenla Formation conglomerate were dominated by hypabyssal intrusions on the southern Qiangtang terrane, which recorded a rapid uplift and denudation process in the late Albian, accompanied by intense volcanic eruptions. The second set of terrestrial strata is the Upper Cretaceous Jingzhushan Formation alluvial fan-braided river deposits, which can be divided into a lower conglomerate member (Member 1) and a upper sandstone member (Member 2). The large amount of bioclastic limestone fragments in the Member 1 show that they come from the Upper Cretaceous Langshan Formation in the central and northern Lhasa subterranes. While in the Member 2, abundant limestone debris, detrital zircon yielding Jurassic–Cretaceous ages with εHf(t) values between −18.6 and + 8.4, and occurrence of volcanic and ancient zircon grains indicate a volcanic-sedimentary source located in the central and northern Lhasa subterranes, with some input from the Bangong-Nujiang suture zone. This suggests that the central and northern Lhasa subterranes experienced rapid crustal uplift in the Late Cretaceous, thus ending the marine sedimentary environment since the Jurassic. Based on the temporal and spatial sedimentary characteristics of the Qushenla and Jingzhushan formations as well as the regional data, our integrated study suggests that the central plateau (Lhasa and southern Qiangtang terranes) experienced a complex uplift history during the Aptian-Turonian, with southwards stepwise growth in time and space. Furthermore, the uplift mechanism of the central plateau is complex, which was controlled by the diachronous closure of the Bangong-Nujiang Tethyan Ocean from east to west during the Early Cretaceous, and by the far-field forces associated with northwards subduction of the Neo-Tethys Ocean during the Late Cretaceous.