Abstract
The Upper Triassic Langjiexue Group, exposed south of the Yarlung-Zangbo suture zone in south Tibet, shows sedimentary features different from typical Tethyan Himalayan successions, and its origin is controversial. In this article we combine field observations with paleocurrent, petrologic, geochronological and isotopic data to determine the provenance of Langjiexue sandstones. These middle to distal deep-sea-fan turbidites are crosscut by Lower Cretaceous diabase sills and dikes generated during rifting of India from Gondwana, indicating that the Langjiexue Group was originally deposited along or adjacent to the northern passive continental margin of India. Flute casts at the base of turbidite beds indicate mostly WNW-ward paleocurrents, pointing to provenance from a source located east of the depositional area. Common volcanic fragments and plagioclase grains together with a cluster of 400–200-Ma-aged magmatic zircons with uniform εHf(t) values from −5 to +10 are incompatible with any nearby sources, including the Qiantang Block, the Lhasa Block or the India subcontinent, and indicate instead supply from a long-lived magmatic-arc terrane. Considering what is known about Late Triassic paleogeography, a plausible source for Langjiexue sediments is represented by the Gondwanide Orogen, generated during subduction of the pan-Pacific oceanic lithosphere beneath southeastern Gondwana. This scenario is supported by the age range and Hf isotopic signatures of Late Paleozoic–Early Mesozoic zircons contained in Langjiexue turbidites as in coeval turbidites exposed in western Myanmar. New data are needed to confirm/falsify the existence of a thousand-km-long sediment-routing system similar to the modern Amazon, which – sourced in a cordillera-type orogen rising along the southeastern margin of Gondwana – crossed an entire continent to feed turbiditic fans now exposed from western Myanmar to the northern Tethys Himalaya.
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