Abstract
The major scientific purpose of this work is to evaluate the geodynamic processes involved in the development of tectonic features of NE India and its surroundings. In this work, we have obtained tomographic images of the crust and uppermost mantle using inversion of Rayleigh waveform data to augment information about the subsurface gleaned by previous works. The images obtained reveal a very complicated tectonic regime. The Bengal Basin comprises a thick layer of sediments with the thickness increasing from west to east and a sudden steepening of the basement on the eastern side of the Eocene Hinge zone. The nature of the crust below the Bengal Basin varies from oceanic in the south to continental in the north. Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra River Valleys comprise ∼5–6-km-thick sediments. Crustal thickness in the higher Himalayas and southern Tibet is ∼70 km but varies between ∼30 and ∼40 km in the remaining part. Several patches of low-velocity medium present in the mid-to-lower crust of southern Tibet along and across the major rifts indicate the presence of either partially molten materials or aqueous fluid. Moho depth decreases drastically from west to east across the Yadong-Gulu rift indicating the complex effect of underthrusting of the Indian plate below the Eurasian plate. Crust and upper mantle below the Shillong Massif and Mikir Hills are at a shallow level. This observation indicates that tectonic forces contribute to the uprising of the Massif.
Highlights
Along span of convergence between Indian and Eurasian plates has caused subduction, underthrusting, and extrusion resulting in widespread lithospheric deformation (Molnar et al, 1977; Shear Wave Tomography of NE IndiaMolnar, 1984; Tapponnier et al, 2001; DeCelles et al, 2002; Nábelek et al, 2009)
Elevated Tibetan plateau, Indo-Burma Ranges (IBR), and the Himalayas are the result of the collision and crustal thickening, which is associated with mountain building phenomena and crustal shortening (Burchfiel and Royden, 1985; England and Houseman 1989; Murphy and Copeland, 2005; Thiede et al, 2006)
Our result indicates that the final model converges very well from a wide range of initial models and, the output is independent of initial values
Summary
1. Our new Rayleigh wave tomography of NE India provides a 3D view of the complex interaction between Indian, Asian, and Burma plates. 2. Moho geometry shows expected crustal thinning beneath Bengal Basin and thickening beneath the Himalayas, and pronounced Moho shallowing beneath Shillong Plateau/Mikir Hills. 3. Low-velocity bodies in the mid-crust of southern Tibet/Lhasa blocks likely indicate partial melts or fluids that are restricted to beneath the narrow surface graben
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