Late Cretaceous-Paleogene deepwater basin of North Afghanistan and the Central Pamirs: Issue of Hindu Kush earthquakes

Abstract

The within-Iranian backarc basins, including the largest Sebzawar Basin, opened in the Mid-Cretaceous. Spreading in this basin was completed by the end of the Cretaceous. The basin closed in the Eocene with the formation of subduction zones and volcanic-plutonic belts. Data on North Afghanistan and the Central Pamirs have allowed us to reconstruct the eastern continuation of the Sebzawar Basin up to the west of the Central Pamirs. No fragments of oceanic crust are retained in Afghanistan and the Pamirs, but by analogy with the Sebzawar Basin, thick Paleogene flysch sequences and volcanic-plutonic complexes indicate setting of the active margin and subduction. It is suggested that the belt of mantle seismicity that extends for 550 km to the south of the Central Pamirs is related to the plunging and deformation of the lithosphere once underlying the Cretaceous-Paleogene basin. The extremely vigorous seismicity of the Hindu Kush megasource at the western termination of the seismic belt is caused by a number of specific tectonic features that predetermined the early onset of plunging of the subducted sheet (slab). In the megasource, the slab sank to a depth of 300 km and became vertical; its active deformation has proceeded up to the present. In the eastern part of the seismic belt, the slab started to plunge much later and therefore has retained a gentle slope, so that the depth of the hypocenters is shallower (down to 200 km), and earthquakes are less strong.