Geochronology, geochemistry and tectonic implications of Late Triassic granites in the Mongolian Altai Mountains

• First discovery of Late Triassic leucogranites in the Mongolian Altai.
• Leucogranite induced by anatexis during intracontinental subduction.
• Anatexis interpretation is consistent with leucogranite geochemistry.
• Possible comparison of the Altai and Himalayan leucogranites.

Although the closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean in western China and western Mongolia occurred in the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian, widespread intra-continental magmatism continued to occur across this region from the Late Permian to the end of the Triassic. In this study we document field relationships and geochemical characterization of a Late Triassic felsic intrusive complex in the western Mongolian Altai. The plutonic complex occurs as sills, dikes, and small stocks and its composition varies from biotite granite, two-mica granite, to leucogranite. Structurally, the plutonic complex occurs in the hanging wall of a segment of the regionally extensively (>1500 km long) Irtysh–Ertix–Bulgan thrust zone. As the plutonic bodies both cut and are deformed by the shear fabrics in this regional thrust shear zone, the duration of felsic magmatism and regional thrusting was temporally overlapping. This suggests that magmatism was coeval with crustal thickening. Major- and trace-element data and isotopic analysis of granitoid samples from our study area indicate that the felsic intrusions were derived from partial melting of meta-sediments, with the biotite and two-mica granite generated through vapor-absent melting and the leucogranite from flux melting. Although the Mongolian Altai intrusions were clearly originated from anatexis, coeval granite in the Chinese Altai directly west of our study area in the hanging wall of the Irtysh–Ertix–Bulgan thrust was derived in part from mantle melting. To reconcile these observations, we propose a Himalayan-style intracontinental-subduction model that predicts two geologic settings for the occurrence of felsic magmatism: (1) along the intracontinental thrust zone where granite was entirely generated by anatexis and (2) in the hanging wall of the intracontinental thrust where convective removal and/or continental subduction induced mantle melting.