Dextral transpression and late Eocene magmatism in the trans-Himalayan Ladakh Batholith (North India): implications for tectono-magmatic evolution of the Indo-Eurasian collisional arc

Abstract

The trans-Himalayan Ladakh batholith is a result of arc magmatism caused by the northward subduction of the Tethyan oceanic lithosphere below the edge of the Eurasian plate. The batholith dominantly consists of calc-alkaline I-type granitoids which are ferromagnetic in nature with the presence of magnetite as the principal carrier of magnetic susceptibility. The mesoscopic and magnetic fabric are concordant and generally vary from WNW–ESE to ENE–WSW for different intrusions of ferromagnetic granites in different parts of the batholith. Strike of magnetic fabric is roughly parallel with the regional trend of the Ladakh batholith in the present study area and is orthogonal to the direction of India-Eurasia collision. In Khardungla and Changla section, the magnetic fabric is distributed in a sigmoidal manner. It is inferred that this sigmoidal pattern is caused by shearing due to transpression induced by oblique convergence between the two plates. U–Pb zircon geochronology of a rhyolite from the southern parts of the batholith gives a crystallization age of 71.7 ± 0.6 Ma, coeval with ~68 Ma magmatism in the northern parts of the batholith. The central part of the batholith is characterized by S-type two-mica granites, which gives much younger age of magmatism at 35.5 ± 0.5 Ma. The magnetic fabric of these two-mica granites is at a high angle to the regional trend of the batholith. It is proposed that these two-mica granites were emplaced well after the cessation of subduction and arc magmatism, along fractures that developed perpendicular to the regional strike of the batholith due to shearing.