Eastern Ghats Province (India)-Rayner Complex (Antarctica) accretion: Timing the event

Abstract

There is consensus that, at 1.0–0.9 Ga, the granulites in the Eastern Ghats Province (EGP), Eastern India, and the Rayner Complex, Antarctica, were parts of a coherently evolved crustal block. Paleogeographic reconstructions suggest that in the Neoproterozoic/Early Paleozoic, India and Antarctica were closely positioned at equatorial latitudes in two periods at 1.0–0.9 Ga and 0.6–0.5 Ga. The question is, in which of these periods did the EGP–India vis-à-vis India–Antarctica accretion occur. Top-to-the-west thrusts juxtaposed the EGP with the Bastar Craton, a part of the Greater India landmass. The eastern fringe of the craton underwent anatexis (750–780 °C; 8–9 kbar) and high deformation strain that demonstrably weakened westward. Zircon in the anatectic migmatites at the EGP margin and in the weakly-deformed and non-migmatite granite in the hinterland in the west yields U–Pb upper intercept ages of 2.5–2.4 Ga whereas titanite, hosted in the leucosome of a metatexite and in a granite, has an age of 502 ± 3 Ma coinciding with the lower intercept ages of zircon discordia lines. The lack of 1.0–0.9 Ga dates in the cratonic margin suggests that the EGP accreted with the Bastar Craton and the Greater India landmass at 0.5 Ga during the Gondwanaland assembly, and not in the Early Neoproterozoic. It is within the realms of possibility that the EGP had already separated from the Rayner Complex during the disintegration of Rodinia, and therefore, the 0.5 Ga accretion of the dismembered EGP with Greater India may not be symptomatic of India–Antarctica accretion, in spite of the proximity of the two landmasses inferred from paleogeographic reconstructions.