Onset of mid-crustal extensional flow in southern Tibet: Evidence from U/Pb zircon ages

New ion microprobe U/Pb dates from zircon in deformed orthogneiss and migmatite and an undeformed granite in Mabja Dome are the first to constrain the timing of peak metamorphism, and onset and duration of mid-crustal ductile extension, in southern Tibet at 35.0 ± 0.8 Ma and ∼12–19 million years. The structural, metamorphic, and intrusive histories in mid-crustal rocks exposed in these north Himalayan gneiss domes are similar to those recorded in the Greater Himalayan sequence, suggesting that middle crust was continuous from beneath southern Tibet southward to the high Himalaya. Strain compatibility indicates that 35 Ma ductile extension in mid-crustal rocks of southern Tibet was accommodated to the south at shallow crustal levels via normal slip along the southern Tibetan detachment system, the oldest age estimate for slip along this normal fault zone, and extrusion of its footwall. If gravitational collapse is an additional important process driving extension, then southernmost Tibet may have been at or near maximum elevation by late Eocene-early Oligocene time. This article is available from the Geological Society of America