Middle Jurassic Paleolatitude of the Tethyan Himalaya: New Insights Into the Evolution of the Neo‐Tethys Ocean

Abstract

AbstractThe paleogeography of the Tethyan Himalaya (TH) during the Mesozoic is vital to constrain the evolutionary history of the Neo‐Tethys Ocean, but reliable paleomagnetic data from Jurassic rocks in this area are scarce. Here, we report the first high‐quality paleomagnetic results from the Middle Jurassic (∼175–173 Ma) Lanongla Formation limestones in the Nyalam area of the TH. For most specimens, stepwise thermal or hybrid demagnetization reveals two well‐defined magnetization components. A low‐temperature component, which is isolated between natural remanent magnetization and 200–300°C, is consistent with the present geomagnetic field direction. A high‐temperature component, which is isolated between 300–350°C/10–25 mT and 500–580°C/60–120 mT, passes fold tests at the 95% and 99% confidence level, indicating a prefolding primary magnetization. The tilt‐corrected site‐mean direction for 28 paleomagnetic sites is Ds = 331.0° and Is = −49.9° with α95 = 2.7°, which provides a Fisherian site‐mean paleopole at 23.7°N, 292.9°E with A95 = 2.8° and a paleolatitude of 31.7 ± 2.8°S for the Nyalam study area (28.6°N, 86.1°E). A comparison between the reliable Middle Jurassic‐Early Cretaceous poles obtained from the TH and those observed from the Lhasa terrane reveals that the Neo‐Tethys Ocean for the reference point (29.1°N, 86.1°E) had a latitudinal width of 3,500 ± 1,000 km at ∼174 Ma, reached its greatest width of 7,000 ± 1,000 km at ∼137 Ma, and had an average latitudinal spreading rate of ∼10.4 cm/year during ∼174–137 Ma.