Neogene magnetostratigraphy and rock magnetic study of the Kashi Depression, NW China: Implications to neotectonics in the SW Tianshan Mountains

Abstract

The southwest Tianshan Mountains of China are bordered by the Tarim foreland and comprise an actively deforming segment of the India-Asia collisional system. We report a detailed magnetostratigraphic study of the Dashankou section in the Kashi Depression of the Tarim Basin to improve the understanding of the history of sedimentation, denudation, and mountain building in this region. The preferred correlation of the succession with the geomagnetic polarity timescale defines a depositional history between 12.4 and 3.0 Ma with a substantial increase in sedimentation rates identified at ~6.7 Ma corresponding to a pulse of rapid uplift in the southwest Tianshan Mountains. Although climatic changes may have modulated the record during Neogene times, they do not appear to have had an important influence on sediment accumulation rates between 7.0 and 2.6 Ma. Magnetic fabrics identify the influence of a regional stress field imparted by ongoing India-Asia collision in the lower part of the succession contrasting with predominantly sedimentary fabrics in the higher part of the succession. A major clastic influx with a maximum age estimate of ~3.6 Ma comprises the Xiyu conglomerates, and integration with other magnetostratigraphic investigations around the Tianshan demonstrates unambiguously that depositional onset of this coarse clastic episode is diachronous. Hence, the Xiyu Formation cannot be considered as a chronostratigraphic marker related to any specific tectonic or climatic event.