Asaf Raza

Tectonic history of the Altyn Tagh fault system in northern Tibet inferred from Cenozoic sedimentation

The active left-slip Altyn Tagh fault defines the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau. To determine its deformation history we conducted integrated research on Cenozoic stratigraphic sections in the southern part of the Tarim Basin. Fission-track ages of detrital apatites, existing biostratigraphic data, and magnetostratigraphic analysis were used to establish chronostratigraphy, whereas composition of sandstone and coarse clastic sedimentary rocks was used to determine the unroofing history of the source region. Much of the detrital grains in our measured sections can be correlated with uplifted sides of major thrusts or transpressional faults, implying a temporal link between sedimentation and deformation. The results of our studies, together with existing stratigraphic data from the Qaidam Basin and the Hexi Corridor, suggest that crustal thickening in northern Tibet began prior to 46 Ma for the western Kunlun Shan thrust belt, at ca. 49 Ma for the Qimen Tagh and North Qaidam thrust systems bounding the north and south margins of the Qaidam Basin, and prior to ca. 33 Ma for the Nan Shan thrust belt. These ages suggest that deformation front reached northern Tibet only ∼10 ± 5 m.y. after the initial collision of India with Asia at 65–55 Ma. Because the aforementioned thrust systems are either termination structures or branching faults of the Altyn Tagh left-slip system, the Altyn Tagh fault must have been active since ca. 49 Ma. The Altyn Tagh Range between the Tarim Basin and the Altyn Tagh fault has been a long-lived topographic high since at least the early Oligocene or possibly late Eocene. This range has shed sediments into both the Tarim and Qaidam Basins while being offset by the Altyn Tagh fault. Its continuous motion has made the range act as a sliding door, which eventually closed the outlets of westward-flowing drainages in the Qaidam Basin. This process has caused large amounts of Oligocene–Miocene sediments to be trapped in the Qaidam Basin. The estimated total slip of 470 ± 70 km and the initiation age of 49 Ma yield an average slip rate along the Altyn Tagh fault of 9 ± 2 mm/yr, remarkably similar to the rates determined by GPS (Global Positioning System) surveys. This result implies that geologic deformation rates are steady state over millions of years during continental collision.

Thermal history and tectonic subsidence of the Bohai Basin, northern China: a Cenozoic rifted and local pull-apart basin

The Bohai Basin is a part of the larger Bohai Bay Basin, a Cenozoic rifted intraplate basin. Heat flow measurements show that the Bohai Basin is characterized by present-day heat flow varying between 53 and 74 mW/m 2 with a mean of 63 mW/m 2 . However, thermal history analyses derived from vitrinite reflectance (VR) and apatite fission track (AFT) data, indicate that tertiary cooling took place following a period of much higher paleo-heat flow (70–90 mW/m 2 ) prior to ∼25 million years to the present. Furthermore, tectonic subsidence analysis reveals that the Bohai Basin experienced episodic sub-rifting processes from the Eocene to the end of the Oligocene. The post-rift thermal subsidence was superimposed by intensified subsidence from the late Miocene (12 million years) in the Bozhong Depression and from the early Quaternary (2.4 million years) in the East Liao Bay, indicating a rejuvenation of sedimentation related likely to transpressional structures developed locally on strike–slip faults. The present results indicate that there is good agreement between the reconstructed thermal history and the timing of the tectonic subsidence stages within the Bohai Basin. The Bohai Basin is an early Cenozoic rifted and local pull-apart sub-basin of the larger Bohai Bay Basin.

Arc‐continent collision in Papua Guinea: Constraints from fission track thermochronology

The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Mobile Belt adjacent to the Finisterre Arc was formerly the leading NE corner of the Australian plate that converged obliquely with the Pacific plate. Forty new apatite and zircon fission track analyses of Mobile Belt rocks previously dated by K-Ar and Rb-Sr analyses constrain Neogene time-temperature paths and tectonic models. The Paleogene arc along the southern margin of the Caroline plate was juxtaposed against PNG in the early Miocene, coeval with locking up of the west dipping Solomon subduction zone by the Ontong Java Plateau. These events initiated wrenching along the northern PNG margin and increased westward subduction of the Solomon Sea plate beneath the eastern margin. The Mobile Belt underwent extension above the downgoing slab with rapid cooling of metamorphic rocks at ∼17 Ma, immediately prior to emplacement of the Maramuni Arc from 17 to 12 Ma. A change in plate motion at ∼12–10 Ma terminated the arc and caused PNG-Caroline plate convergence, creating the orogenic belt in New Guinea from 12 to 4 Ma. This resulted in ∼4.5 km of uplift and ∼3 km of denudation and cooling of the entire Mobile Belt in the late Miocene, propagating westward along the Mobile Belt at 8–5 Ma and southward into the Fold Belt at 5–4 Ma. The compression caused thrusting of Miocene strata within the Mesozoic type section. A further change in plate motion at 4–3 Ma returned the margin to transpression with local compression along strike-slip faults and ongoing collision of the Finisterre Arc terrane.

Fission track thermotectonic imaging of the Australian continent

Abstract Fission track analyses of apatites from a very large data set across Australia provide a first look at the patterns of low-temperature thermochronology over an entire continent. The rock samples are mostly of granitic rocks, or their metamorphic equivalents, of Palaeozoic or older age from the exposed basement regions. Sample chemical analyses indicate that the apatite suite is overwhelmingly of fluorapatite composition. Approximately 2750 fission track analyses have been completed, of which >1700 are of sufficient quality to form a coherent data set that can be interpolated to show the variation of central fission track age and mean confined track length on a continental scale. The resulting images exhibit some features which are well known, such as the trend towards young apatite ages along the eastern and southeastern rifted continental margins, but others that are more surprising, such as the lack of clear differentiation, in terms of the range of ages and lengths, between the older Precambrian cratonic areas in the west, and younger Phanerozoic mobile belts to the east. The Precambrian rocks from the western two-thirds of the continent do, however, show distinctly different cooling histories to those in the eastern Phanerozoic mobile belts when the relationships between track lengths and fission track ages are considered. The western craton everywhere shows patterns of prolonged slow cooling, whereas all major regions of the eastern part of the continent show discrete episodes of rapid cooling, mostly from the Jurassic to the Palaeogene. Significant areas of unusually young apatite ages (

Evaluating thermal history models for the Otway Basin, southeastern Australia, using (U-Th)/He and fission-track data from borehole apatites

New apatite helium and fission-track data from the Otway Basin are consistent with previously published borehole ages, confirming earlier suggestions that existing thermal models for basin evolution should be reevaluated. Analysis of the relationship between helium ages and grain size in newly analyzed samples, as well as in samples previously reported, reveals that grain size variations may contribute to the previously reported scatter in helium ages among aliquots of the same sample. In addition, systematic variations in apatite grain size with borehole depth or temperature may also have a significant effect on the interpretation of borehole helium age data. Incorporation of the observed grain size variations in Otway borehole apatites into forward models based on published thermal histories, principally based on vitrinite reflectance and fission-track data, suggests that existing models for the eastern Otway Basin are broadly consistent with the helium data. In contrast, thermal histories for western basin boreholes, now thought to be at maximum temperatures, predict helium ages that are generally older than the observed ages, implying that basin temperatures were hotter than indicated by the models. This discrepancy is consistent with a Cenozoic heating event in parts of the western Otway Basin similar to that documented for the eastern basin. The relatively wide spread of apparent apatite fission-track (AFT) ages and compositions compared to the restricted age range of helium measurements on coexisting grains, although not conclusive, supports previous suggestions that composition does not appear to affect the sensitivity of the He closure temperature in apatite.

Low-temperature thermochronological record of exhumation of the Bitterroot metamorphic core complex, northern Cordilleran Orogen

Abstract The Bitterroot metamorphic core complex is an exhumed, mid-crustal, plutonic–metamorphic complex that formed during crustal thickening and subsequent extension in the hinterland of the North American Cordilleran Orogen, in the northern Idaho batholith region. Extension was accommodated mainly on the Bitterroot mylonite zone, a 500–1500-m-thick shear zone that deforms granitic intrusive rocks as young as 53–52 Ma, as well as older high-grade metamorphic rocks and plutons. Exhumation of the core complex, in Eocene time, is marked in the shear zone by the transition from amphibolite-facies mylonitization, to greenschist-facies mylonitization, chloritic brecciation, to brittle faulting that progressed from shallower crustal levels in the west to deeper crustal levels in the east from ca. 53 –30 Ma based on U–Pb, Ar–Ar, and fission-track data. Apatite and zircon fission-track data record the lower-temperature part of the exhumation history and help define when the shear zone became inactive, as well as the transition from rapid, core complex-style extension to slower basin-and-range-style extension. They indicate that the western part of the complex was exhumed to within 1–2 km of the surface by ∼48–45 Ma, while the eastern part of the complex was still at amphibolite-facies conditions and that the eastern part of the complex was not exhumed below ∼60 °C until after 30 Ma. Younger apatite fission-track ages (≤26 Ma) on the eastern range front of the Bitterroot Mountains suggest that the present topographic expression of the mylonite front was due to Miocene high-angle faulting and widening of the Bitterroot Valley.

Archaeological implications of the geology and chronology of the Soa basin, Flores, Indonesia

The timing of arrival of early hominids in Southeast Asia has major implications for models of hominid evolution. The majority of evidence for the earliest appearance of hominids in the region has previously come from Java in western Indonesia. Much of this evidence remains controversial owing to a poor understanding of the stratigraphic and chronologic relationships of the depositional units from which the material was derived. Before artifacts may be placed into their proper archaeological context, the geologic history of archaeological sites must be thoroughly understood, and deposits containing artifacts must be properly dated. An extensive investigation has been undertaken on the island of Flores, in eastern Indonesia, to determine the depositional and chronological history of stratigraphic units within the Soa basin; many of the units are associated with stone artifacts attributed to Homo erectus. Zircon fission-track dates of tuffaceous deposits within this lacustrine basin now provide the most reliable data concerning the true time of arrival of Homo erectus into Southeast Asia and indicate that these early hominids must have successfully begun colonizing eastern Indonesia by ca. 840 ka.

A reappraisal of low-temperature thermochronology of the eastern Fennoscandia Shield and radiation-enhanced apatite fission-track annealing

Abstract We assess the proposal of Hendriks & Redfield (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 236, 443–458, 2005) that cross-over of the predicted apatite fission track (AFT)>(U–Th–Sm)/He (AHe) age relationship in the southeastern Fennoscandian shield in southern Finland reflects α-radiation-enhanced annealing (REA) of fission tracks at low temperatures and that more robust estimates of the denudation history are recorded through reproducible AHe data. New AHe results from southern Finland showing variable dispersion of single-grain ages may be biased by different factors operating within grains, which tend to give a greater weighting towards older age outliers. AHe ages from mafic rocks show the least dispersion and tend to be consistently lower than their coexisting AFT ages. In general, it is at the younger end of the single-grain variation range from such lithologies where most meaningful AHe ages can be found. AHe data from multigrain aliquots are, therefore, of limited value for evaluating thermal histories in southern Finland, especially when compared against coexisting AFT data as supporting evidence for REA. New, large datasets from the southern Canadian and Western Australian shields show the relationship between AFT age, single-grain age or mean track length as a function of U content (determined by the external detector method). These do not display the moderately strong inverse correlations previously reported from southern Finland in support of REA. Rather, the trends are inconsistent and generally exhibit weak positive or negative correlations. This is also the case for plots from both shields, as well as those from southern Finland, where AFT parameters are plotted against effective U concentration [eU] [based on U and Th content determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS)], which weights decay of the parents more accurately in terms of their α‐productivity. Further, samples from southern Finland yield values of chi-square χ2 >5%, indicating that there is no significant effect of the range of uranium content between grains within samples on the AFT ages, and that they are all consistent with a single population. The oldest AFT ages in southern Finland apatites (amongst the oldest recorded from anywhere) are found in gabbros, which also have the highest Cl content of all samples studied. We suggest, that it is Cl content rather than REA that has influenced the annealing history of the apatites, which have experienced a history including reburial into the partial annealing zone by Caledonian Foreland basin sedimentation. The study of apatite from low U and Th rocks, with relatively low levels of α-radiation damage may provide the most practical approach for producing reliable results for AFT and AHe thermochronometry studies in cratonic environments.