Multi-stage exhumation of the NE Tarim Precambrian bedrock, NW China: constraints from apatite fission track thermochronology in the Kuluketage area

Terra Nova, 23, 324–332, 2011 Fourteen samples of Precambrian bedrocks from the Kuluketage area, located in the north‐eastern Tarim Craton, yield apatite fission track ages ranging from 166 to 82 Ma. These ages are far younger than their Precambrian age of stratigraphy or metamorphism, indicating that the samples experienced total annealing before Mesozoic exhumation. The samples were subdivided into three groups based on locations and ages. Multi‐stage Mesozoic exhumation is linked to collisions of the Qiangtang, Lhasa and Kohistan terranes with the South Eurasian continental margin. The three cooling phases are also shown by stratigraphy and seismology. Considering modelling results with different constraint boxes, seismic profiles and the stratigraphic sequences of surrounding sedimentary basins, faint Cenozoic reheating and recooling were likely to take place in the Kuluketage area by northwards propagating deformation from India–Eurasia collision and continued convergence.