Early Palaeozoic deep subduction of continental crust in the Kyrgyz North Tianshan: evidence from Lu-Hf garnet geochronology and petrology of mafic dikes

High-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) eclogite-bearing metamorphic assemblages in the North Tianshan of Kyrgyzstan are known from the Aktyuz and Makbal areas, where eclogites and garnet amphibolites are associated with continental rocks such as granitoid gneisses in Aktyuz and shallow-water clastic (passive margin?) metasediments in Makbal. We present the first Lu-Hf isotope data for an eclogite and two garnet amphibolite samples from the two metamorphic terranes which, combined with petrological analysis, tightly constrain the age of high-pressure metamorphism in the Kyrgyz North Tianshan. A fivepoint isochron for an Aktyuz eclogite sample provides a LuHf age of 474.3 ± 2.2 Ma, and a four-point isochron on a Makbal sample corresponds to 470.1 ± 2.5 Ma. A prograde, subduction-related path is inferred for both samples with peak P-T conditions ranging from 1.4 to 1.6 GPa and 610-620°C. A further Makbal sample provided a significantly older Lu-Hf age of 486 ± 5.4 Ma, most likely due to late alteration in the sample (late addition of unradiogenic Hf). We conclude that garnet growth in all three samples occurred around ca. 474 Ma and that these rocks likely experienced UHP metamorphism contemporaneously. Our results support previous geochronological evidence for an Early Ordovician collision belt in the North Tianshan and allow refinement of a tectonic model involving subduction of thinned continental crust to considerable depth along the margin of a small microcontinent. Keywords Lu-Hf * Mafic dike * Aktyuz * Makbal * Northern Tianshan * Kyrgyzstan
Introduction The Tianshan orogen of north-western China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is part of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB; Fig. 1) which evolved over some 800 Ma from the [...]