Carboniferous back-arc bimodal rocks in West Kunlun during northward subduction of the Paleo-Tethys

ABSTRACT

The widespread occurrence of Carboniferous Wuluate Formation volcanic rocks in the West Kunlun is closely related to the evolution of the Paleo-Tethys but has received little attention. In this study, we conducted detailed fieldwork on the Wuluate Formation in West Kunlun and performed zircon U‒Pb dating, whole-rock major and trace element analysis, whole-rock Sr-Nd isotope analysis, and in situ zircon Hf isotope analyses. The Wuluate Formation is characterized by a bimodal volcanic suite. Zircon U‒Pb dating indicates that the rhyolites erupted at ca. 348–353 Ma, which is coeval with the zircon U‒Pb dating result of 354 Ma for the basalt. The basalts show a tholeiitic magmatic evolution trend with flattened REE patterns and depleted whole-rock Sr-Nd and zircon Hf isotopes, indicating geochemical affinity to back-arc basin basalt (BABB). Trace element modelling results indicate that the primitive basaltic compositions fit well with the products of the DMM + sediments + H₂O source under melting conditions of asthenospheric temperature and thin lithosphere thickness, and the REE modelling results show that the basalts underwent 40% to 95% crystallographic differentiation of olivine, monazite, hornblende, plagioclase, and magnetite. The silicic rocks are calcic to calcic-alkaline and meta/peraluminous. They exhibit flattened REE patterns and slightly enriched zircon Hf isotopes, which could originate from Precambrian metaigneous sources of West Kunlun. The Kungai bimodal suite is likely to have formed in a back-arc setting corresponding to the northward subduction of Paleo-Tethys. The subduction of Paleo-Tethys had already occurred, and a back-arc basin had developed before the Early Carboniferous.

KEYWORDS:

• bimodal suites
• Zircon U‒Pb age
• back-arc
• West Kunlun
• Paleo-Tethys

Acknowledgments

We thank XXX reviewers for their constructive reviews that improved the quality of this manuscript. This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42003028), Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province, China (Grant No. 22B0433) and the Provincial Key R&D Program of Xinjiang Autonomous Region (Grant No. 2022A03010-2).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00206814.2023.2233016

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [42003028]; the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research [2021QZKK03-03]; Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi [2023-JC-ZD-15]; the Provincial Key R&D Program of Xinjiang Autonomous Region [2022A03010-2]; Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province [22B0433].