Miocene provenance change in Himalayan foreland basin and Bengal Fan sediments, with special reference to detrital garnet chemistry

Abstract

AbstractBengal Fan Miocene sediments were collected during International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 354 and investigated using petrographic and detrital garnet chemistry analyses. The Miocene Siwalik Group, which is composed of sediments deposited in the Himalayan foreland basin, was also analyzed for comparison with the Bengal Fan data for the provenance change during the Miocene. Our petrographic analyses revealed that the Miocene sediments of the Bengal Fan and Siwalik Group consist predominantly of Higher Himalayan Crystalline (HHC)‐derived detritus such as chloritoid, staurolite, sillimanite, and/or kyanite, which appear among the accessory minerals. The chemistry of the detrital garnet varies across the stratigraphy; most of the garnet is rich in almandine and poor in spessartine and pyrope. However, pyrope‐rich garnet, which is considered to originate from the HHC core (granulite facies), was found in the lower to upper Miocene deposits. The deposition of HHC‐derived detrital garnet began before the Middle Miocene (15 Ma) and before the Late Miocene (10–9 Ma) in the Siwalik Group. The Bengal Fan data, by contrast, indicated that pyrope‐rich garnet appeared in the Early Miocene (17.3 Ma) and Late Miocene (8.5–6.5 Ma). We conclude that the Bengal Fan sediments record the erosion of the HHC zone since the Early Miocene that appears in the Siwalik sediments. Furthermore, we found that the HHC‐derived inputs decreased from the late Middle Miocene (12 Ma) to the early Middle Miocene (10 Ma) in both the Nepal Himalaya foreland basin and the Bengal Fan. The disappearance of the HHC‐derived detritus is probably the result of dilution by Lesser Himalayan detritus, which suggests that the Lesser Himalayan zone, which is composed of metamorphosed and unmetamorphosed sedimentary rocks, was uplifted.