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Magmatic arcs are natural laboratories for studying the growth of continental crusts. The Gangdese arc, southern Tibet, is an archetypal continental magmatic arc that formed due to Mesozoic subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere; however, its formation and evolution remain controversial. In this contribution, we combine newly reported and previously published geochemical and geochronological data for Mesozoic magmatic rocks in the eastern Gangdese arc to reveal its magmatic and metamorphic histories and review its growth, thickening, and fractionation and mineralization processes. Our results show that: (1) the Gangdese arc consists of multiple Mesozoic arc-type magmatic rocks and records voluminous juvenile crustal growth. (2) The Mesozoic magmatic rocks experienced Late Cretaceous granulite-facies metamorphism and partial melting, thus producing hydrous and metallogenic element-rich migmatites that form a major component of the lower arc crust and are a potential source for the Miocene ore-hosting porphyries. (3) The Gangdese arc witnessed crustal thickening and reworking during the Middle to Late Jurassic and Late Cretaceous. (4) Crystallization-fractionation of mantle-derived magmas and partial melting of thickened juvenile lower crust induced intracrustal chemical differentiation during subduction. We suggest that the Gangdese arc underwent the following main tectonic, magmatic, and metamorphic evolution processes: normal subduction and associated mantle-derived magmatism during the Late Triassic to Jurassic; shallow subduction during the Early Cretaceous and an associated magmatic lull; and mid-oceanic ridge subduction, high-temperature metamorphism and an associated magmatic flare-up during the early Late Cretaceous, and flat subduction, high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphism, partial melting, and associated crust-derived magmatism during the late Late Cretaceous. Key issues for further research include the temporal and spatial distributions of Mesozoic magmatic rocks, the evolution of the components and compositions of arc crust over time, and the metallogenic processes that occur in such environments during subduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lhasa terrane of the southern Tibetan Plateau participated in a Mesozoic Andean-type orogeny caused by the northward subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere. However, metamorphic rocks, which can unravel details of the geodynamic evolution, are rare and only exposed in the south-eastern part of the Lhasa terrane. Therefore, we conducted a detailed petrological, geochemical and U–Pb zircon geochronological study of the late Cretaceous metamorphic rocks and associated gabbros from the Nyemo inlier of the southern Lhasa terrane. The Nyemo metamorphic rocks including gneisses, schists, marbles and calc-silicate rocks, experienced peak amphibolite-facies contact metamorphism under P–T conditions of 3.5–4.0 kbar and 642–657 °C with a very high geothermal gradient of 45–50 °C/km, revealing a distinct deflection from the steady-state geotherm during low-pressure metamorphism. Inherited magmatic zircon cores from the metamorphic rocks yielded protolith ages of 197–194 Ma, while overgrowth zircon rims yielded metamorphic ages of ca. 86 Ma. Whole-rock chemistry and zircon Hf isotopes suggest that the protoliths of the gneisses and schists are andesites and tuffs of the early Jurassic Sangri Group, which were derived from a depleted mantle source of a continental arc affinity. The coeval intimately-associated gabbro (ca. 86 Ma) crystallized under P–T conditions of 3.5–5.3 kbar and 914–970 °C, supplying the heat flux high enough to cause the contact metamorphism of the Sangri Group rock types. We propose that the intrusion of the gabbro and a simultaneous pressure increase of up to 4.0 kbar, which is related to crustal thickening due to crustal overthrusting and the intrusion of mafic material, resulted in the late Cretaceous metamorphism of the early Jurassic Sangri Group during an Andean-type orogeny. Furthermore the Nyemo metamorphic rocks, which have previously been considered to represent slivers of the Precambrian metamorphic basement of the Lhasa terrane, are late Cretaceous metamorphic supracrustal rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]