Permian komatiites and associated basalts from the marine sediments of Chhongtash Formation, southeast Karakoram, Ladakh, India

摘要

The Karakoram micro-plate is the southern most sector of the Central Asian micro-plate mosaic which was separated by a narrow rift basin. A major rifting phase started during Permian time, which lead to drift of not only Karakoram but of the entire Eurasian (Asian) Plate from Gondwana land. This was at a time when a prominent sequence of black argillites occupied most part of the Karakoram Tethys basin. The geodynamic setting for this sequence may be interpreted as the evolution of a passive margin affected by extensional tectonics. The extensional activity is evident from the extrusion of basalts and komatiitic rocks in the region. In this paper the geochemical relations between komatiites and basalts of the Chhongtash, southeast Karakoram are investigated. The basaltic and komatiitic (ultrabasic) flows are petrologically and geochemically distinct, yet they display a close spatial and temporal association, and they are related to each other through olivine and clinopyroxene fractionation. The chemical characteristics of the ultrabasic to basic magmatism in the region is consistent with formation above a mantle plume that impinged on the continental lithosphere. Hence, a model of partial melting in a mantle plume and fractional crystallization in a deep-seated magma chamber is envisaged to explain the evolution of these volcanic rocks. The komatiite melts are interpreted to have been derived by high degree partial melting of mantle plumes in the tail region, while the basalts were interpreted to be the result of interaction of source plume with cool mantle through which the plume head passed. This study is the first of its kind, to suggest a rift related nature in the Chhongtash, southeast Karakoram, that represent the initial stage of Mesozoic rifting along the southern margin of Eurasia when Gondwana started to drift away from Eurasia.