Provenance evolution from subduction to arc-continent collision: An example from Zagros-Makran Transition Zone

Abstract

Arc-continent collision zones are critical areas where uplift, accretion, and erosion processes significantly influence the growth, elimination, or recycling of the continental crust. The Zagros-Makran Transition Zone, located along the Minab-Zendan Fault, represents a convergence boundary between the Zagros continental domain and the Makran accretionary prism in southern Iran from the Cretaceous onwards. Several tectonic slices, including Neotethys ophiolitic remnants and the Ganj and Bajgan-Durkan complexes, have accreted along the southern margin of the Eurasian Plate during subduction in the western Makran wedge. To clarify the growth steps of the Makran Prism and the internal deformation associated with arc-continent collision, we used a provenance study of sandstones from the western Makran accretionary prism involving petrography of the main detrital components and U-Pb dating, Hf isotopic values, and trace elements of detrital zircon grains. Our findings reveal a progressive scenario in which oceanic arc-related rocks of the ~ 99 Ma Ganj Complex with Hf values ranging from +10 to +16 were uplifted during the Early to Late Eocene. The Eocene fore-arc sediments were sourced from the ~ 49-47 Ma Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc with Hf values between -5 and +12, as well as from the Ganj Complex. The Jurassic-Cretaceous Bajgan-Durkan Complex was uplifted due to the Late Eocene to Oligocene collision of various terranes along the southern margin of the Eurasian Plate. This led to a major sediment influx into the Makran trench with a detrital signal in the range ~ 175-160 Ma with Hf isotopic values from -3 to +4 and alongside the Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc with detrital ages ranging ~ 46-37 Ma and ca. 80 Ma. Notably, metamorphic lithic grains began to appear in the sediments in the Late Eocene. The initial arrival of sediments from the Arabian margin to the arc-continent suture zone along the Minab-Zendan Fault indicates the onset of initial collision. During the Late Oligocene-Early Miocene, detrital zircon ages in the range of ~ 610-520 Ma, sourced from the Arabian basement, were deposited in the trench basin together with components from the Eocene Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc and Cretaceous ophiolitic clasts of ~ 93 Ma with Hf isotopic values of +12 to +16. Following the development and uplift of the orogen from the Middle Miocene onward, detrital zircon grains from the Cretaceous-Miocene Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc, Jurassic-Cretaceous Bajgan-Durkan Complex, and Cretaceous ophiolites are present in both the Makran and Zagros sedimentary domains.

Keywords

Makran prism / Arc-continent collision / Provenance / Detrital zircon U-Pb dating / Minab-Zendan Fault

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Parisa GholamiZadeh: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Validation, Methodology, Investiga-tion, Data curation, Conceptualization. Bo Wan: Writing - review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Resources, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. Guido Meinhold: Writing - review & editing, Validation, Investigation, Conceptualization. Rasoul Esmaeili: Writing - review & editing, Data curation. Mohammad Ebrahimi: Writing - review & editing, Data curation.

Data availability

The location of samples for zircon analyses and the datasets generated during the current study are provided in Supplementary Data Table S1. Point-counting results plotted on diagrams in are provided in Supplementary Data Table S2, U-Pb and REE data on detrital zircon in Supplementary Data Tables S3 and S4, and Hf isotopic data in Supplementary Data Table S5. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the NSFC grant (No. 92255303). Special thanks are extended to Prof. Fuyuan Wu for his invaluable discussions, Zhiyong Zhang for his useful suggestions and assis-tance in organizing laboratory work, as well as to Wenbo Zhang and Shasha Wang for their contributions during Hf isotope analy-sis. The first author is grateful for support from the IGGCAS post-doctoral program (2016IFPR01) under the guidance of Prof. Bo Wan. The authors thank G. Bonnet for his feedback on regional geology. We would like to express our appreciation to the anony-mous reviewers for providing insightful comments and suggestions.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2025.102079.

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