Structural, Kinematic and Geochronological Study of the Main Tianshan Shear Zone in the Borohoro Ranges, NW China

The western segment of the Main Tianshan shear zone (MTSZ) branches into three major dextral strike-slip shear zones in the Borohoro Ranges, northwestern China. Mylonitic rocks within these zones exhibit vertical foliations, subhorizontal lineations, and dextral kinematics. The microstructures and CPO patterns of calcite and quartz in the tectonites suggest shearing at temperatures of 200 degrees C to 500 degrees C or above. The amount of dextral displacement along the zones is less than 100 km. LA-ICP-MS U-Pb dating of zircons from some pre-kinematic granites gave ages of 364-325 Ma and 316 Ma, and zircons from a syn-kinematic leucogranite gave an age of 291 Ma. We propose that dextral shearing along the MTSZ started in the earliest Permian. Our data indicate that collision between the Yili and Junggar plates might have finished before 325 Ma or 316 Ma, with a tectonic transformation from 325 Ma to 300 Ma, resulting in intracontinental transpression from 300 Ma or 291 Ma. We suggest that the formation of the Kazakhstan orocline (KO) took place in two stages, with the early stage of bending driven by convergence related to oblique subduction, and the late stage possibly associated with lateral disarticulation as a result of the dextral strike-slip shear zones.