@article{LichtDupontNivetWinetal.2018,
  author    = {Licht, Alexis and Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume and Win, Zaw and Swe, Hnin Hnin and Kaythi, Myat and Roperch, Pierrick and Ugrai, Tamas and Littell, Virginia and Park, Diana and Westerweel, Jan and Jones, Dominic and Poblete, Fernando and Aung, Day Wa and Huang, Huasheng and Hoorn, Carina and Sein, Kyaing},
  title     = {Paleogene evolution of the Burmese forearc basin and implications for the history of India-Asia convergence},
  series = {Geological Society of America bulletin},
  volume    = {131},
  journal   = {Geological Society of America bulletin},
  number    = {5-6},
  publisher = {American Institute of Physics},
  address   = {Boulder},
  issn      = {0016-7606},
  doi       = {10.1130/B35002.1},
  pages     = {730 -- 748},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The geological history of the Burmese subduction margin, where India obliquely subducts below Indochina, remains poorly documented although it is key to deciphering geodynamic models for the evolution of the broader Tibetan-Himalayan orogen. Various scenarios for the evolution of the orogen have been proposed, including a collision of India with Myanmar in the Paleogene, a significant extrusion of Myanmar and Indochina from the India-Asia collision zone, or very little change in paleogeography and subduction regime since the India-Asia collision. This article examines the history of the Burmese forearc basin, with a particular focus on Eocene-Oligocene times to reconstruct the evolution of the Burmese margin during the early stages of the India-Asia collision. We report on sedimentological, geochemical, petrographical, and geochronological data from the Chindwin Basin-the northern part of the Burmese forearc-and integrate these results with previous data from other basins in central Myanmar. Our results show that the Burmese margin acted as a regular Andean-type subduction margin until the late middle Eocene, with a forearc basin that was open to the trench and fed by the denudation of the Andean volcanic arc to the east. We show that the modern tectonic configuration of central Myanmar formed 39-37 million years ago, when the Burmese margin shifted from an Andean-type margin to a hyper-oblique margin. The forearc basin was quickly partitioned into individual pull-apart basins, bounded to the west by a quickly emerged accretionary prism, and to the east by synchronously exhumed basement rocks, including coeval high-grade metamorphics. We interpret this shift as resulting from the onset of strike-slip deformation on the subduction margin leading to the formation of a paleo-sliver plate, with a paleo fault system in the accretionary prism, pull-apart basins in the forearc, and another paleo fault system in the backarc. This evolution implies that hyper-oblique convergence below the Burmese margin is at least twice older than previously thought. Our results reject any India-Asia convergence scenario involving an early Paleogene collision of India with Myanmar. In contrast, our results validate conservative geodynamic models arguing for a close-to-modern precollisional paleogeometry for the Indochina Peninsula, and indicate that any post-collisional rotation of Indochina, if it occurred at all, must have been achieved by the late middle Eocene.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WesterweelRoperchLichtetal.2019,
  author    = {Westerweel, Jan and Roperch, Pierrick and Licht, Alexis and Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume and Win, Zaw and Poblete, Fernando and Ruffet, Gilles and Swe, Hnin Hnin and Thi, Myat Kai and Aung, Day Wa},
  title     = {Burma Terrane part of the Trans-Tethyan arc during collision with India according to palaeomagnetic data},
  series = {Nature geoscience},
  volume    = {12},
  journal   = {Nature geoscience},
  number    = {10},
  publisher = {Nature Publ. Group},
  address   = {New York},
  issn      = {1752-0894},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41561-019-0443-2},
  pages     = {863 -- 868},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Convergence between the Indian and Asian plates has reshaped large parts of Asia, changing regional climate and biodiversity, yet geodynamic models fundamentally diverge on how convergence was accommodated since the India-Asia collision. Here we report palaeomagnetic data from the Burma Terrane, which is at the eastern edge of the collision zone and is famous for its Cretaceous amber biota, to better determine the evolution of the India-Asia collision. The Burma Terrane was part of a Trans-Tethyan island arc and stood at a near-equatorial southern latitude at similar to 95 Ma, suggesting island endemism for the Burmese amber biota. The Burma Terrane underwent significant clockwise rotation between similar to 80 and 50 Ma, causing its subduction margin to become hyper-oblique. Subsequently, it was translated northward on the Indian Plate by an exceptional distance of at least 2,000 km along a dextral strike-slip fault system in the east. Our reconstructions are only compatible with geodynamic models involving an initial collision of India with a near-equatorial Trans-Tethyan subduction system at similar to 60 Ma, followed by a later collision with the Asian margin.},
  language  = {en}
}