Lithospheric thinning in the Eastern Indian Craton: Evidence for lithospheric delamination below the Archean Singhbhum Craton?

We herein present shear velocity structure extending down to 300 km depth below the Archean Singhbhum-Odisha Craton (SOC) and Proterozoic Chotanagpur granitic-gneissic terrain (CGGT), which has been obtained through the inversion modeling of P-receiver functions. We use three-component broadband recordings of 200 teleseismic earthquakes (30° ≤ ∆ ≤ 90°) from a 15 station seismic network that has been operational in the Eastern Indian shield since February 2013. We obtain the thinnest crust of 35 km overlying a thin lithosphere of 78 km, below the region near south Singhbhum shear zone, which could be attributed to the 1.6 Ga plume activity associated with Dalma volcanic. However, the thickest crust of 47 km overlying a thin lithosphere of 81 km is noticed below the region near the Singhbhum granite of 3.6 Ga. This thinning of lithosphere could be attributed to the delamination of lithospheric root due to the Himalayan orogeny with a shortening rate of 2 cm/year. This delamination model in SOC gets further support from the densification of the lower crust, which could result from repeated episodes of basaltic underplating associated with episodes related to Dalma (~ 1.6 Ga) and Rajmahal (~ 117 Ma) volcanisms. This led to relatively more mafic, heterogeneous and deformed crustal structure in SOC as well as EGMB (with an average crustal Vs of 4.0 km/s) in comparison to that in CGGT (with an average crustal Vs of 3.9 km/s), as seen through our modeling results. The thickest lithosphere of 100 km is observed in the southwestern SOC as well as northeastern CGGT. We also notice that a sharp and flat Moho in CGGT, which could be attributed to thermal reactivation and large volume melting of the mafic cratonic crust during the late Archean subduction process and associated volcanism episodes. This model gets further support from the estimated 169 km thick lower Vs zone in the upper mantle below CGGT. Our modeling results also support a northward subduction of Archean SOC under the Proterozoic CGGT during 1.0-1.6 Ga, as earlier proposed by the geological age data from the region.