Jurassic to Miocene magmatism and metamorphism in the Mogok metamorphic belt and the India‐Eurasia collision in Myanmar

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Situated south of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis at the western margin of the Shan‐Thai terrane the high‐grade Mogok metamorphic belt (MMB) in Myanmar occupies a key position in the tectonic evolution of Southeast Asia. The first sensitive high‐resolution ion microprobe U‐Pb in zircon geochronology for the MMB shows that strongly deformed granitic orthogneisses near Mandalay contain Jurassic (∼170 Ma) zircons that have partly recrystallized during ∼43 Ma high‐grade metamorphism. A hornblende syenite from Mandalay Hill also contains Jurassic zircons with evidence of Eocene metamorphic recrystallization rimmed by thin zones of 30.9 ± 0.7 Ma magmatic zircon. The relative abundance of Jurassic zircons in these rocks is consistent with suggestions that southern Eurasia had an Andean‐type margin at that time. Mid‐Cretaceous to earliest Eocene (120 to 50 Ma) I‐type granitoids in the MMB, Myeik Archipelago, and Western Myanmar confirm that prior to the collision of India, an up to 200 km wide magmatic belt extended along the Eurasian margin from Pakistan to Sumatra. Metamorphic overgrowths to zircons in the orthogneiss near Mandalay date a period of Eocene (∼43 Ma) high‐grade metamorphism possibly during crustal thickening related to the initial collision between India and Eurasia (at 65 to 55 Ma). This was followed by emplacement of syntectonic hornblende syenites and leucogranites between 35 and 23 Ma. Similar syntectonic syenites and leucogranites intruded the Ailao Shan‐Red River shear belt in southern China and Vietnam during the Eocene‐Oligocene to Miocene, and the Wang Chao and Three Pagodas faults in northern Thailand (that most likely link with the MMB) were also active at this time. The complex history of Eocene to early Miocene metamorphism, deformation, and magmatism in the MMB provides evidence that it may have played a key role in the network of deformation zones that accommodated strain during the northwards movement of India and resulting extrusion or rotation of Indochina.