Cretaceous-Tertiary Carbonate Platform Evolution and the Age of the India-Asia Collision along the Ladakh Himalaya (Northwest India)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The India-Asia collision resulted in the formation and uplift of the Himalaya and the enhanced uplift of the Tibetan plateau. The transition from marine to continental facies within the Indus–Yarlung Tsangpo suture zone and along the northern margin of the Indian plate provides the most accurate method of dating the closure of the Tethys Ocean separating the Indian and Asian plates. Other indirect methods of dating the collision, such as paleomagnetism, dating the UHP metamorphism along the north margin of India, dating the youngest subduction-related granites along the southern margin of Asia, and dating the postorogenic Indus Molasse Group deposits within the suture zone, cannot provide such a precise or reliable age of collision. Ophiolite obduction onto the Indian passive margin occurred during the latest Cretaceous and predated initial collision of the two continental plates. Unconformities occur beneath the Late Maastrichtian Marpo Formation and beneath the Danian Stumpata Formation on the ...