Adakite-like granitoids of Songkultau:A relic of juvenile Cambrian arc in Kyrgyz Tien Shan

The early Paleozoic Terskey Suture zone,located in the southern part of the Northern Tien Shan domain in Kyrgyzstan,comprises tectonic slivers of dismembered ophiolites and associated primitive volcanics and deepmarine sediments.In the Lake Songkul area,early-middle Cambrian pillow basalts are crosscut by the Songkultau intrusion of coarse-grained gneissose quartz diorites and tonalites with geochemical characteristics typical for high-SiO2 adakites(SiO2>56 wt.%,Al2O3>15 wt.%,Na2 O>3.5 wt.%and high Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios).The Songkultau granitoids have positive initialεNd(+3.8 to+6.4)andεHf(+12.3 to+13.5)values indicating derivation from sources with MORB-like isotopic signature.Volcanic formations,surrounding the Songkultau intrusion,have geochemical affinities varying from ocean floor to island arc series.This rock assemblage is interpreted as a relic of an early-middle Cambrian primitive arc where the adakite-like granitoids were derived from partial melting of young and hot subducted oceanic crust.An age of 505 Ma,obtained for the Songkultau intrusion,shows that hot subduction under the Northern Tien Shan continued until middle Cambrian.The primitive arc complexes were obducted onto the Northern Tien Shan domain,where the Andean type continental magmatic arc developed in Cambrian and Ordovician.Formation of the Andean type arc was accompanied by uplift,erosion and deposition of coarse clastic sediments.A depositional age of ca.470 Ma,obtained for the gravellites in the Lake Songkul area,is in agreement with the timing of deposition for lower Ordovician conglomerates elsewhere in the Northern Tien Shan,and corresponds to the main phase of the Andean type magmatism.The Songkultau adakites in association with surrounding ocean floor and island arc formations constitute a relic of a primitive Cambrian arc and represent a juvenile domain of substantial size identified so far within the predominantly crustal-derived terranes of Tien Shan.On a regional scale this primitive arc can be compared with juvenile Cambrian arcs of Kazakhstan,Gorny Altai and Mongolia.

The Caucasian-Arabian segment of the Alpine-Himalayan collisional belt: Geology, volcanism and neotectonics

The Caucasian-Arabian belt is part of the huge late Cenozoic Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt formed by collision of continental plates. The belt consists of two domains： the Caucasian-Arabian Syntaxis （CAS） in the south and the EW-striking Greater Caucasus in the north. The GAS marks a zone of the indentation of the Arabian plate into the southern East European Craton. The Greater Caucasus Range is located in the south of the Eurasian plate; it was tectonically uplifted along the Main Caucasian Fault （MCF）, which is, in turn, a part of a megafault extended over a great distance from the Kopetdag Mts. to the Tornquist- Teisseyre Trans-European Suture Zone. The Caucasus Mts. are bounded by the Black Sea from the west and by the Caspian Sea from the east. The SN-striking CAS is characterized by a large geophysical isostatic anomaly suggesting presence of mantle plume head. A 500 km long belt of late Cenozoic volcanism in the CAS extends from the eastern Anatolia to the Lesser and Greater Caucasus ranges. This belt hosts two different types of volcanic rocks： （1） plume-type intraplate basaltic plateaus and （2） suprasubductiontype calc-alkaline and shoshonite-latite volcanic rocks. As the CAS lacks signatures of subduction zones and is characterized by relatively shallow earthquakes （50 60 kin）. we suggest that the ＂supra- subduction-type＂ magmas were derived by interaction between mantle plume head and crustal material. Those hybrid melts were originated under conditions of collision-related deformation. During the late Cenozoic, the width of the CAS reduced to ca. 400 km due to tectonic ＂diffluence＂ of crustal material Drovided bv the continuing Arabia-Eurasia collision.