DIRECT DATING OF LEFT-LATERAL SLIP ALONG THE RED RIVER SHEAR ZONE

The Red River Shear Zone (RRSZ), which extends from eastern Tibet to the South China Sea, plays a central role in the hypothesis that strike\|slip extrusion of Indochina accommodated a significant portion of Indo\|Asian convergence. The massifs of the RRSZ, the only known mid\|crustal section exposed through a transform plate boundary, contain high\|grade metamorphic rocks that are believed to have been plastically deformed in a left\|lateral sense during the mid\|Tertiary. While the history of diachronous transtension along the RRSZ was previously obtained for temperatures below the brittle\|ductile transition from argon thermochronometry, the precise timing of high temperature deformation and the magnitude of strain have not been directly determined. This is a significant limitation to testing the extrusion model as magnetic anomalies from the South China Sea, interpreted to be a pull apart basin at the SE termination of the RRSZ, specifically predict that slip occurred between 35～17Ma at a rate of 3～5cm/a.