The results of recent geothermobarometric and geochronological investigations of scarce eclogites of the NW Himalaya (Tso Morari (Ladakh), India and Kaghan Valley, Pakistan) have caused a major rethink of tectonometamorphic models for India|Asia collision. Numerous petrologic studies have been undertaken on the age and origin of metamorphism in the Higher Himalayan Crystallines (HHC) and Lesser Himalaya formations (LH) and their relationship to granite magmatism and movements along the Main Central Thrust (MCT) and South Tibetan Detachment Fault (STDF). However, all of these events are essentially Miocene (or younger) in age and can clearly be distinguished from subduction and exhumation processes undergone by the eclogites which are of Eocene age (Tonarini et al. 1993; Spencer & Gebauer; 1996; de Sigoyer et al. 1999) and relate to the very early stages of the collision. Eclogites of eastern Ladakh are mafic lenses found in granitic gneisses (Ordovician intrusive age: Girard & Bussy 1999) and their surrounding late Pre|Cambrian to early Cambrian sedimentary units in the Tso Morari dome (see Steck et al. 1998). Detailed petrological and geochronological studies (Guillot et al. 1997; de Sigoyer et al. 1997, 1999) have identified an eclogite facies stage (2000±300)MPa, (580±60)℃ followed by isothermal decompression associated with glaucophane growth at around (1100±200)MPa. Dating of different phases by different methods yielded ages around 55Ma for this stage ((55±17) Ma, U|Pb, Aln; (55±12) Ma, Lu|Hf, Grt|Cpx|Rt; (55±7) Ma, Sm|Nd, Grt|Gln|Rt). A subsequent amphibolite facies overprint at slightly higher temperature (610±70)℃ was dated at 45～48Ma (metabasite: (47±11) Ma, Sm|Nd, Grt|Hbl; metapelite: (45±4) Ma, Rb|Sr, Mu|Ap|WR and (48±2) Ma, Ar|Ar, Phe). By (30±1) Ma (Ar|Ar, Bt|Mu) retrogression into the greenschist facies had occurred (de Sigoyer et al. 1999). These data indicate a two stage history with early exhumation being much faster (>4mm/a) than the later evolution (1～2mm/a).
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