Dai, Zuo-Wen, Huang, Han-Xiao, Li, Guang-Ming, Huizenga, Jan-Marten, Santosh, M., Cao, Hua-Wen, Huang, Chun-Mei, and Ding, Jun (2020) Formation of Late Cretaceous high-Mg granitoid porphyry in central Lhasa, Tibet: implications for crustal thickening prior to India-Asia collision. Geological Journal, 55 (10). pp. 6696-6717.

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Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau is characterized by the largest crustal thickness on Earth, although the timing of formation of the plateau remains debated. In this study, we present in situ laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry zircon U–Pb ages and Hf isotopes, and whole-rock geochemical data on porphyritic granitoids of Sebuta in the central Lhasa block. Our zircon U–Pb data indicate that these rocks emplaced at ca. 89 Ma, in the early Late Cretaceous. Geochemically, the Sebuta biotite granite porphyry can be broadly divided into two subtypes, namely metaluminous porphyry and peraluminous porphyry. The metaluminous porphyry has high SiO2, Al2O3, Sr, low Y and Yb contents, and high Sr/Y and LaN/YbN ratios, showing adakitic features. These rocks have high K2O and Th contents, low Ti/Eu and Nd/Sm ratios, indicative of a continental crust affinity. Positive zircon εHf(t) values, along with high Mg#, Cr and Ni, imply that the Sebuta adakitic porphyry was most likely derived from partial melting of a delaminated thickened juvenile lower crust, and that the initial melts interacted with mantle peridotite during ascent. The field features, petrographic characteristics, formation age, ore-bearing potential, and Hf isotope of the peraluminous porphyry are similar to those of the Sebuta adakitic porphyry, indicating that the peraluminous porphyry was likely formed by contamination with ancient crustal material and fractional crystallization from the same primary adakitic magmas which generated the Sebuta adakitic porphyry. Residual phases of amphibole + plagioclase + garnet + rutile in the source region, together with previous studies, suggest that the crust beneath the central northern Lhasa block experienced thickening during the early Late Cretaceous, and had already been thickened to more than 50 km by the Late Cretaceous (ca. 89 Ma).

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