U–Pb age of detrital zircons from the Tekes River, Xinjiang, China, and implications for tectonomagmatic evolution of the South Tian Shan Orogen

The South Tian Shan, which is located along the southwestern margin of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, is widely accepted as a collisional orogen between the Kazakhstan-Yili Block in the north and the Tarim Craton in the south, and the collision is thought to have occurred in either Late Paleozoic or Triassic. Regardless of the timing of the collision, the major magmatic events in the South Tian Shan Orogen should be related to subduction, collision and post-collision. We investigate this problem through U–Pb age of detrital zircons from the eastward-flowing Tekes River and its southern branches flowing through the northern slope of the Chinese South Tian Shan. A total of 500 analyses on 494 zircon grains from five sand samples yield an age range of 2590 to 268 Ma, but they are dominated by Paleozoic magmatic zircon grains, with some Precambrian population, but no Mesozoic and Cenozoic grains were detected. One of the samples from the Tekes River contains zircon grains from the Chinese South Tian Shan and other areas because the river receives its discharge from multiple sources. The other four samples were collected from four branches originating from the Chinese South Tian Shan only. From west to east, the sample from the Kayintemuzhate River shows two peak ages of 475 and 345 Ma, sample from the Muzhaerte (also called Xiate) River has peak ages of 422 and 290 Ma, sample from the Akeyazi River is characterized by a single peak age of 421 Ma, and sample from the Kekesu River shows a more complicated spectra with peak ages of 426, 398, 362, 327, and 285 Ma. When pooled together, the four samples yield four distinct age populations of 500–460, 450–390, 360–320, and 300–270 Ma, indicating the major magmatic events in the Chinese South Tian Shan. These results, combined with regional data, show an absence of Mesozoic magmatic events in the drainage areas of the Tekes River, and thus the South Tian Shan does not seem to be a Triassic orogen because of the lack of syn-collisional and post-collisional magmatism. The 300–270 magmatic event is thought to post-date the closure of the South Tian Shan Ocean, while the 360–320 and 450–390 Ma events were closely related to the northward subduction of the South Tian Shan Ocean. Our results strongly suggest a Late Carboniferous (320–300 Ma) collision between the Kazakhstan-Yili Block and the Tarim Craton. Possibly, the 500–460 Ma magmatism was related to subduction and closure of the Early Paleozoic Terskey Ocean.