Structural Features and Proto-Type Basin Reconstructions of the Bay of Bengal Basin:A Remnant Ocean Basin Model

Remnant ocean basin is a key to understand the plate suturing and subsequent uplift and erosion of orogen. The Bay of Bengal Basin （BOBB） provides a typical example to analyze the remnant ocean basin structures, evolution, and relationships between depositional filling and uplifting of the Himalayan Orogen. Thirty-nine seismic profiles as well as interval velocities of well BODC3 were used to compile isopach maps of the basin. Among the seismic data, 26 seismic profiles were applied to estab- lish 8 cross sections. The cross sections suggest the basin is asymmetric, bounded to the west by the eastern continental margin of India （ECMI） with graben-horst and to the east by the Sunda conver- gence margin dominated by trench-arc system. The BOBB is characterized by a prominent down flex- ure structures caused by huge amount of Bengal fan turbidite sediments accumulation. Our isopach maps and chronology data collected from adjacent regions reveal the initial development and fast southward growth of the Bengal fan were related to the early and major stage uplift and erosion of the Himalayan Orogen, respectively. The BOBB has experienced a critical transition from an ocean basin to a remnant ocean basin at Late Oligocene. Such basin structures and evolution features indicate the BOBB provides whole records of oblique convergence of the India and Asia plates, and the early and major stage evolution of the Himalayan Orogen.

Silurian Sedimentation in the South Qilian Belt: Arc-Continent Collision-related Deposition in the NE Tibet Plateau?

The South Qilian belt mainly comprises an early Paleozoic arc-ophiolite complex, accretionary prism, microcontinental block, and foreland basin. These elements represent accretion-collision during Cambrian to Silurian time in response to closure of the Proto-Tethyan Ocean in the NE of the present-day Tibet Plateau. Closure of the Proto-Tethyan Ocean between the Central Qilian block and the Oulongbuluke block and the associated collision took place from NE to SW in a zipper-like style. Sediment would have been dispersed longitudinally SW-ward with a progressive facies migration from marginal alluvial sediments toward slope deep-water and deep-sea turbidites. This migration path indicates an ocean basin that shrank toward the SW. The Balonggongga'er Formation in the western South Qilian belt represents the fill of a latest Ordovician-Silurian remnant ocean basin that separated the Oulongbuluke block from the Central Qilian block, and records Silurian closure of the Proto-Tethyan Ocean and subduction beneath the Central Qilian block. However, alluvial deposits in the Lajishan area were accumulated in a retro-foreland basin, indicating that continent-continent collision in the eastern South Qilian belt occurred at c. 450–440 Ma. These results demonstrate that the Proto-Tethyan Ocean closed diachronously during early Paleozoic time.