Thermal controls on early-Tertiary, short-lived, rapid regional metamorphism in the NW Himalaya, Pakistan

Abstract

During Tertiary collision in the NW Himalaya, the leading edge of the Indian Plate was subducted beneath the Kohistan island arc along the Main Mantle Thrust (MMT). Metamorphism within Indian Plate cover sediments was synchronous with ductile shearing, and took place along a path of increasing pressure during subduction beneath the island arc. Initial collision cannot have pre-dated 65 Ma and probably shortly pre-dated 50 Ma. Radiometric data constrain the metamorphic peak as shortly post-dating 50 Ma. As, firstly, initially subducted units are now probably located beneath Tibet, secondly, the subduction thrust separating the Kohistan arc terrane from the Indian Plate was probably cooled by continued underthrusting and, thirdly, the heat-producing Indian Plate cover sediments were delaminated from the basement during collision, metamorphism was more rapid than can be predicted by purely conductive models of thermal relaxation. Although dissipative shear heating along the MMT doubtless contributed to early stages of heating of the footwall rocks, the temperatures attained in the footwall are too high to support the shear stresses required to generate them solely through shear heating. A model is derived to account for both the rapid regional metamorphism and the equally rapid post-metamorphic cooling. Dissipative shear heating along the MMT generated an early inverted thermal profile in the upper units of the Indian Plate. As the hanging wall mafic rocks have a low thermal conductivity, they would have acted as a thermal reflector and the heat would have been conducted away only slowly. As footwall temperatures increased through the brittle-ductile transition, the role of dissipative shear heating decreased and continued heating became a function of internal heat generation within the footwall rocks, together with hanging wall thermal reflectivity. The metamorphic inversion was reinforced by imbrication of the metamorphic stack as it accreted onto the MMT footwall during early stages of uplift and exhumation. Dissipative shear heating within thrust systems provides a potentially important mechanism by which areas of large regional extent can undergo regional metamorphism over short timescales, in the absence of magmatic heating.