Detrital zircon U-Pb-He double dating: A method of quantifying long- and short-term exhumation rates in collisional orogens

作     者：Christina Yan WANG Ian H.CAMPBELL Peter W.REINERS Charlotte M.ALLEN 

作者机构：Key Laboratory of Mineralogy and Metallogeny Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences Research School of Earth Sciences The Australian National UniversityCanberra ACT 0200 Australia Department of Geosciences University of ArizonaTucson AZ 85721 USA 

出 版 物：《Science China Earth Sciences》 (中国科学（地球科学英文版）)

年 卷 期：2014年第57卷第11期

页      面：2702-2711页

核心收录：

学科分类：070904[理学-构造地质学] 070902[理学-地球化学] 0709[理学-地质学] 07[理学] 

基　　金：supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project(Grant No.DP 0556923) the Chinese Academy of Sciences Distinguished Professorship Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry,Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.Y234041001) 

主　　题：zircon U-Pb-He double-dating method Himalayas exhumation rate collisional orogen 

摘      要：A U-Pb-He double-dating method is applied to detrital zircons with core-rim structure from the Ganges River in order to de- termine average short and long-term exhumation rates for the Himalayas. Long-term rates are calculated from the U/Pb ages of metamorphic rims of the grains that formed during the Himalayan orogeny and their crystallization temperatures, which are calculated from the Ti-in-zircon thermometer. Short-term rates are calculated from （U-Th）/He ages of the grains with appro- priate closure temperatures. The results show that short-term rates for the Himalayas, which range from 0.70 ± 0.09 to 2.67 ± 0.40 km/Myr and average 1.75 ± 0.59 （1δ） km/Myr, are higher and more varied than the long-term rates, which range from 0.84 ±0.16 to 1.85 ± 0.35 km/Myr and average 1.26 ±0.25 （let） km/Myr. The differences between the long-term and short-term rates can be attributed to continuous exhumation of the host rocks in different mechanisms in continental collision orogen. The U/Pb ages of 44.0 ± 3.7 to 18.3 ±0.5 Ma for the zircon rims indicate a protracted episode of -：25 Myr for regional metamorphism of the host rocks at deeper crust, whereas the （U-Th）/He ages of 42.2 ± 1.8 to 1.3 ± 0.2 Ma for the zircon grains represent a protracted period of -40 Myr for exposure of the host rocks to shallower crustal level. In particular, the oldest （U-Th）/He ages of the zircon grains are close to the oldest U/Pb ages for the rims, indicating that some parcels of the rocks that contain zircons were rapidly exhumed from deep to shallow levels in the stage of collisional orogeny. On the other hand, some parcels of the rocks may have been carried upwards by thrust faults in the post-collisional stage. The parcels could be carried upwards by the thrust faults that steepen as they near the surface, or by transient movement faults so that areas of rapid exhu- mation became areas of slow exhumation and visa versa on a time scale of a few Myr in order to maintain the continuous ex- huma