Petrogenesis of the Early Cretaceous Laguila bimodal intrusive rocks from the Tethyan Himalaya: Implications for the break-up of Eastern Gondwana

• The ~ 132 Ma Laguila bimodal intrusive rocks are exposed in the Comei area.
• Their formation was associated with the early activity of the Kerguelen plume.
• The magmatic volume of Comei–Bunbury basalts is ~ 1.1 × 104 km3.
• The small volume is not reconciled with those typical models for mantle plume.
• We attribute this to the thick lithosphere (> 150 km) underneath Greater India.

The Kerguelen mantle plume triggered the rift of Eastern Gondwana to open the eastern Indian Ocean, with the formation of ~ 132 Ma Comei–Bunbury large igneous province (LIP). The Comei area is located in the eastern Tethyan Himalaya, paleogeographically belonging to Greater India. The Laguila bimodal intrusive rocks from the Comei area consist of mafic (gabbro-diabase) and felsic rocks (quartz monzonite-granodiorite). This paper presents detailed LA-ICP-MS zircon U-Pb chronology, major and trace elements, and Sr-Nd-Pb isotope geochemistry of the Laguila bimodal intrusive rocks, in order to constrain the early activity of the Kerguelen mantle plume. LA-ICP-MS zircon U-Pb dating shows that the Laguila intrusive rocks were emplaced in the Early Cretaceous (~ 134–130 Ma). The Laguila mafic rocks are enriched in LREE, LILE and HFSE, similar to those of oceanic island basalts (OIB). Their 87Sr/86Sri (0.7054 to 0.7066), 143Νd/144Nd (T) (0.512548 to 0.512619) and (206Pb/204Pb)t ratios (18.492 to 18.859) are comparable with those basalts derived by the Kerguelen hot spot. Elemental and isotopic data suggest that they were likely derived by partial melting of the Kerguelen plume source in the spinel–garnet transition zone (~ 60–80 km). The Laguila felsic rocks share most of the geochemical features of A-type granite and show different 87Sr/86Sri (0.7171 to 0.7204), 143Νd/144Nd (T) (0.511874 to 0.511956) and (206Pb/204Pb)t ratios (19.087 to 19.274) from those of the mafic rocks. They were likely derived by partial melting of crustal rocks at a shallow depth (< 30 km) triggered by underplating of the coeval basaltic magmas. The Laguila intrusive rocks were emplaced in a rift setting during the breakup of eastern Gondwana, associated with the Kerguelen plume activity.We calculated the magmatic volume of Comei–Bunbury basalts and the result is ~ 1.1 × 104 km3. The small volume is not reconciled with those typical models for the initial magmatic eruption of mantle plume. It was possible that the thick lithosphere (> 150 km) underneath Greater India prevented the Kerguelen plume from large-scale melting because of the high pressure when the latter impinged onto the former at ~ 132 Ma. The shallow source (~ 60–80 km) of the Laguila mafic rocks indicate that they originated likely from a series of “diapirs” or “fingers” rising from the head of the Kerguelen plume, which penetrated into the thick lithospheric mantle of Eastern Gondwana at enough shallow depth for melting.