0000000000623626
AUTHOR
Yu. S. Biske
Middle to Late Ordovician arc system in the Kyrgyz Middle Tianshan: From arc-continent collision to subsequent evolution of a Palaeozoic continental margin
New geological, geochronological and isotopic data reveal a previously unknown arc system that evolved south of the Kyrgyz Middle Tianshan (MTS) microcontinent during the Middle and Late Ordovician, 467-444 Ma ago. The two fragments of this magmatic arc are located within the Bozbutau Mountains and the northern Atbashi Range, and a marginal part of the arc, with mixed volcanic and sedimentary rocks, extends north to the Semizsai metamorphic unit of the southern Chatkal Range. A continental basement of the arc, indicated by predominantly felsic volcanic rocks in Bozbutau and Atbashi, is supported by whole-rock Nd- and Hf-in-zircon isotopic data. epsilon(Nd(t)) of + 0.9 to -2.6 and epsilon(Hf…
Late Carboniferous (Kasimovian) closure of the South Tianshan Ocean: No Triassic subduction
Abstract The proposed Triassic age of oceanic subduction and high-pressure/low-temperature (HP-LT) metamorphism in the South Tianshan orogen (STS) of the southwestern Central Asian Orogenic Belt needs to be re-examined on the basis of field relationship and precise age dating. Our biostratigraphic study in the Atbashi Range of southern Kyrgyzstan indicates that sedimentary strata unconformably overlie the HP-LT metamorphic rocks within the Turkestan suture zone and have a late Kasimovian (ca. 305 Ma) age. This constrains the minimum age of eclogite metamorphism in the HP-LT metamorphic complex. A Late Pennsylvanian to early Permian (Asselian) hinterland basin overlaps the margins of the Mid…