title: Early Cretaceous paleomagnetic and geochronologic results from the Tethyan Himalaya: Insights into the Neotethyan paleogeography and the India-Asia collision.
abstract: To better understand the Neotethyan paleogeography, a paleomagnetic and geochronological study has been performed on the Early Cretaceous Sangxiu Formation lava flows, which were dated from ~135.1 Ma to ~124.4 Ma, in the Tethyan Himalaya. The tilt-corrected site-mean characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) direction for 26 sites is Ds = 296.1°, Is = -65.7°, ks = 51.7, α95 = 4.0°, corresponding to a paleopole at 5.9°S, 308.0°E with A95 = 6.1°. Positive fold and reversal tests prove that the ChRM directions are prefolding primary magnetizations. These results, together with reliable Cretaceous-Paleocene paleomagnetic data observed from the Tethyan Himalaya and the Lhasa terrane, as well as the paleolatitude evolution indicated by the apparent polar wander paths (APWPs) of India, reveal that the Tethyan Himalaya was a part of Greater India during the Early Cretaceous (135.1-124.4 Ma) when the Neotethyan Ocean was up to ~6900 km, it rifted from India sometime after ~130 Ma, and that the India-Asia collision should be a dual-collision process including the first Tethyan Himalaya-Lhasa terrane collision at ~54.9 Ma and the final India-Tethyan Himalaya collision at ~36.7 Ma.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Yiming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Tianshui
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Jingjie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.|School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Shihong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Huaichun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li