Indus-Yarlung suture zone

The Indus-Yarlung suture zone or the Indus-Yarlung Tsangpo suture is a tectonic suture in southern Tibet and across the north margin of the Himalayas which resulted from the collision between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate starting about 52 Ma.[1] The north side of the suture zone is the Ladakh Batholith of the Karakoram-Lhasa Block. The rocks of the suture zone consist of an ophiolite mélanges composed of Neotethys oceanic crustal flyschs and ophiolites; the Dras Volcanics: which are basalts, dacites and minor radiolarian cherts – the remains of a mid- to late Mesozoic volcanic island arc; and the Indus Molasse which are an Eocene or later continental clastic sediments.[2]

Map of the Himalaya region. Green is the Indus-Yarlung suture zone
Cross section of the Himalaya, the suture zone is shown in green
Location of Mt. Kailash. Indus-Yarlung Zangbo suture zone, the Yarlung Tsangpo River is sometimes called upper Brahmaputra River.

Some think that the many ophiolites that define the suture are not remnants of a very big ocean, but of a small back-arc basin structure.[3] More recently it has been suggested that these ophiolites formed during Early Cretaceous subduction initiation (Hu and Stern, 2020). You can watch a video about this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Xojnf9sYA

See also
  • Geology of the Himalaya – Origins and structure of the mountain range

References
  1. Age of Initiation of the India-Asia Collision http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rowley/Rowley/Collision_Age.html
  2. Dèzes, Pierre, 1999, Major tectonic subdivisions of the Himalaya "Chapter2: Major Tectonic Subdivisions of the Himalaya". Archived from the original on 2010-01-06. Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  3. Bédard, É.; Hébert, R.; Guilmette, C.; Lesage, G.; Wang, C.S.; Dostal, J. (2009). "Petrology and geochemistry of the Saga and Sangsang ophiolitic massifs, Yarlung Zangbo Suture Zone, Southern Tibet: Evidence for an arc–back-arc origin". Lithos. 113 (1–2): 48–67. Bibcode:2009Litho.113...48B. doi:10.1016/j.lithos.2009.01.011.

Hu, H., and Stern, R. J., 2020. Early Cretaceous Subduction Initiation in Southern Tibet Caused the Northward Flight of India. Geoscience Frontiers 11, 1123-1131.

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