Discovery of Permian–Triassic eclogite in northern Tibet establishes coeval subduction erosion along an ~3000-km-long arc

Abstract

Abstract Eclogite bodies exposed across Tibet record a history of subduction-collision events that preceded growth of the Tibetan Plateau. Deciphering the time-space patterns of eclogite generation improves our knowledge of the preconditions for Cenozoic orogeny in Tibet and broader eclogite formation and/or exhumation processes. Here we report the discovery of Permo-Triassic eclogite in northern Tibet. U-Pb zircon dating and thermobarometry suggest eclogite-facies metamorphism at ca. 262–240 Ma at peak pressures of ~2.5 GPa. Inherited zircons and geochemistry show the eclogite was derived from an upper-plate continental protolith, which must have experienced subduction erosion to transport the protolith mafic bodies to eclogite-forming conditions. The Dabie eclogites to the east experienced a similar history, and we interpret that these two coeval eclogite exposures formed by subduction erosion of the upper plate and deep trench burial along the same ~3000-km-long north-dipping Permo-Triassic subduction complex. We interpret the synchroneity of eclogitization along the strike length of the subduction zone to have been driven by accelerated plate convergence due to ca. 260 Ma Emeishan plume impingement.