Pervasive Miocene melting of thickened crust from the Lhasa terrane to Himalaya, southern Tibet and its constraint on generation of Himalayan leucogranite

The Oligocene to Miocene period is one of the most important stages during the formation and evolution of the Tibetan Plateau which generated the tectonic framework similar to the present. The rise of southern Tibet at this time was accompanied by widespread and intense tectonomagmatic activities. The Himalayan region was dominated by leucogranites considered as pure metasediments derived S-type granites, while the Lhasa terrane developed coeval thickened crust derived high Sr/Y calcalkaline rocks and metasomatized mantle derived ultrapotassic rocks. It is puzzling why the adjacent amalgamated regions show contrasting magmatic and dynamic process. This contribution presents a systematic study of newly found various dikes, including minette, aplite, granodiorite porphyry and granite porphyry, which are widespread from the southern Lhasa terrane, across the Yarlung Tsangpo suture zone (YTSZ) and into the Tethyan Himalaya. These dikes yield 16-11 Ma U-Th-Pb ages from zircon, titanite and monazite. The aplite and granodiorite porphyry dikes (high Sr/Y calcalkaline) and minette dikes (ultrapotassic) previal from the Lhasa terrane to the YTSZ. They are identical to the coeval high Sr/Y and/or ultrapotassic rocks from the Lhasa terrane, indicating a similar melting process of thickened lower crust and metasomatized lithospheric mantle. To the south of YTSZ, the middle Miocene granite porphyry in the Tethyan Himalaya exhibit high Sr/Y ratios (50-138), relatively low initial Sr-87/Sr-86 ratio (0.7064-0.7098), high eNd(t) value (-8.31 to -1.91) and positive epsilon(Hf)(t) value (+1.55 to +4.33), in contrast to the high Sr-87/Sr-86 and low epsilon(Nd)(t) Himalayan leucogranites. They were likely generated by partial melting of thickened lower crust dominated by amphibolite with significant contributions from juvenile magma. The two-mica granite of Bendui pluton from the Tethyan Himalaya is similar to the granite porphyry in element composition, while the highly evolved muscovite granite there resembles the Himalayan leucogranite. Together, the granite porphyry, Bendui two-mica granite and leucogranite from the Tethyan Himalaya show a transition trend in elemental and Sr-Nd isotopic compositions, implying that the high Sr/Y granite porphyry dikes may represent the more primitive magma of Himalayan leucogranites. In this case, the Himalayan leucogranites, at least in part, represent highly evolved I-type granites with extensive assimilation of ancient crustal materials instead of pure metasediment-derived partial melts. Therefore, we suggest that the thickened lower crust in southern Tibet underwent pervasive partial melting during Oligocene to Miocene as a result of the removal of subducting Indian plate. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.