Indosinian tectonics in Vietnam

Abstract

In Vietnam, the Triassic Indosinian collision affected coevally the Truong Son belt and the Kontum Massif,which were not independent tectonic units, but parts of the same Gondwana-derived Indochina continental block. This thermotectonic event took place synchronously throughout Vietnam, during the Lower Triassic 250–240-Ma time interval, as demonstrated by numerous geochronological data, combining Ar–Ar and U–Pb dating methods. Structural and kinematic investigations, in the Indosinian metamorphic rocks, reveal that the collisional process resulted from a consistent northwest-striking convergence of Indochina with respect to the adjacent blocks. It is suggested that this motion was taken up by a pair of opposite subduction zones: to the north, beneath South China, and to the west, beneath western Indochina, along the Song Ma and Po Ko sutures, respectively. Tectonic markers, calc-alkaline subduction-related volcanism and granitic intrusions and the generation of high-pressure rocks that have been recently discovered support this geodynamic setting, at least along Po Ko. Along the northwest-trending Song Ma zone, the obliquity of the convergence during subduction and subsequent collision resulted in the development, within the Truong Son Belt, of a set of subparallel dextral mylonitic shear zones, under amphibolite-facies metamorphism. The intermediate segments remained weakly metamorphic or even almost devoid of metamorphism. Along Po Ko, the convergence was near-orthogonal, with a left-lateral strike-slip component; the ongoing continental subduction resulted in the reworking of the Kontum granulitic basement and the development of Indosinian HP granulitic conditions; the subsequent extension-related exhumation operated approximately in the same northwestwards direction. This Indosinian evolution, applied on a continental crust that had been probably affected, as in South China, by a Caledonian-related event, as judged by the general unconformity of the Lower Devonian sediments, the widespread occurrence of magmatic crystallisation ages of ca 450 Ma (Ordovician-Silurian), and by the approximately similar age of the primary granulitic episode in the Kontum Massif. The similarities of the Devonian facies over central, northern Vietnam and South China imply a land connection, possibly as a consequence of a Caledonian collision along Song Ma, but this does not preclude a further oceanic opening and a closure during the Indosinian.