Timing and dynamics of the juxtaposition of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt against the Bhandara Craton, India: A structural and zircon U‐Pb SHRIMP study of the fold‐thrust belt and associated nepheline syenite plutons

Abstract

Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP) U‐Pb dating of zircon from basement granite gneisses and nepheline syenites of the Sinapalli Nappe, occurring along the northwestern margin of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt, indicate high grade regional metamorphism and associated folding accompanying juxtaposition of the nappe with the Bhandara Craton, to have taken place between 617 ± 85 Ma (lower intercept age of a reworked basement unit) and 517 Ma (age of the youngest syenite). This shows, for the first time, that the final juxtaposition of the northwestern parts of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt against the Bhandara Craton came about in the late Neoproterozoic and not, as previously thought, during the Mesoproterozoic. The northwestern part of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt comprises a fold‐ thrust belt consisting of a stack of northwesterly verging nappes that have been thrust over the Bhandara Craton. The Sinapalli Nappe is the lowermost nappe and rests over a tectonic contact on the Archean granites and gneisses of the craton. The basal décollement is exposed as a two‐km‐wide ductile‐brittle thrust, hosting nepheline syenite plutons that show fabrics consistent with a synkinematic emplacement during thrusting. The Sinapalli Nappe is comprised of a sequence of alternating mafic granulites and quartzofeldspathic gneisses with slivers of basement granites, which are folded in three phases of folding (F1, F2 and F3) and were subjected to granulite facies metamorphism during F1 folding. Thrusting is synkinematic to F2 folding and is responsible for the juxtaposition of the northwestern part of the Eastern Ghats Terrane over the Bhandara Craton during the assembly of parts of eastern Gondwana.