Reconstructing the lost eastern Tethys Ocean Basin: Convergence history of the SE Asian margin and marine gateways

Abstract

Plate tectonic reconstructions for the late Mesozoic-Cenozoic evolution of the eastern Tethyan Ocean Basin, separating eastern Gondwanaland from Proto- Southeast Asia, are usually based on geological data gathered from the different tectonic blocks accreted to Southeast Asia. However, this approach only provides few constraints on the reconstruction of the eastern Tethys Ocean and the drift path of various terranes. We have used marine magnetic anomalies in the Argo and Gascoyne Abyssal Plains off the Australian Northwest Shelf, jointly with published geological data, to reconstruct the seafloor spreading history and plate tectonic evolution of the eastern Tethys and Proto-Indian Ocean basins for the time between 160 Ma and the present. Based on the assumption of symmetrical seafloor spreading and a hotspot-track-based plate reference frame, we have created a relative and absolute plate motion model and a series of oceanic paleo-age grids that show the evolution of Tethyan mid-ocean ridges and the convergence history along the southeast Asian margin through time. A thermal boundary layer model for oceanic lithosphere is used to compute approximate paleo-depths to oceanic basement to predict the opening and closing of oceanic gateways. The proposed model not only provides improved boundary conditions for paleoclimate reconstructions and modelling of oceanic currents through time, but also for understanding stress changes in the overriding plate and the formation of new accretionary crust along the Southeast Asian margin, driven by changing subduction parameters like hinge rollback and slab dip.