Tectonic activity along the inner margin of the South Tibetan Detachment constrained by syntectonic leucogranite emplacement in Western Bhutan

Abstract

In Western Bhutan Himalayas leucogranite dykes emplaced in sub-vertical hybrid fractures that cut across the high-grade rocks of the upper Greater Himalayan Sequence just below to the South Tibetan Detachment. The granitic dykes dip to the North often showing a mylonitic deformation with a top-down to-the-N sense of shear. The high-angle fractures are interpreted to be related to the evolution of the South Tibetan Detachment toward a brittle regime of deformation. U-Pb monazite ages constrain the leucogranite emplacement at 13.9±06 Ma implying that brittle-ductile deformation of the South Tibetan Detachment was active at that time. NNE-SSW to nearly E-W trending large scale antiforms and synforms mapped in NW Bhutan affected the Greater Himalayan Sequence and South Tibetan Detachment only after 14 Ma.