Early Silurian tholeiitic-boninitic Mailisu ophiolite, South Tianshan, Kyrgyzstan: a geochemical record of subduction initiation

Ophiolite assemblages of the South Tianshan fold-and-thrust-belt (STS) track the sea floor dynamics of the late Cambrian to Carboniferous Turkestan Ocean in the western Central Asian Orogenic Belt. We interpret new geochronological and geochemical data for the Mailisu ophiolite from western Kyrgyzstan as evidence for an early Silurian incipient subduction zone outboard the South Chatkal Arc of the Middle Tianshan. Igneous zircons from a leucogabbro yielded a U-Pb age of 440 ± 6 Ma indicating one of the oldest sea floor fragments in the STS. Metabasalt samples have N- to E-MORB trace element patterns and initial εNd values of ~5 to 9 support melting of depleted asthenosphere comprising a min…