부산대학교 도서관

In a significant breakthrough, we report the first discovery of twenty-six genera and thirty-five species of Early Permian (Asselian-Sakmarian and Artinskian; 299 Ma to 276 Ma) Gondwanic palynomorphs from a tectonically emplaced metasedimentary sliver of Shyok Ophiolitic Mélange of the India-Asia Collision zone of Northern Ladakh, India. These palynofloral assemblages are of peri-Gondwanian (Cimmerian) origin and have a strong affinity with the Gondwana assemblage of peninsular India. Similar palynofloral assemblages are also known from Extra-Peninsular India, Salt Range, Karakoram, Antarctica, Australia, South Africa, and South America. The occurrence of Gondwanic sliver within the Shyok Suture is interpreted as a thin flake of active continental margin of peri-Gondwanic microcontinent/Kshiroda plate, which was sliced off during the subduction/collision process, between Ladakh block and Karakoram-Qiangtang-Lhasa terrane and amalgamated with obducted remnants of the accretionary prism of the nascent Shyok Suture. The Shyok Suture closed during the mid- to Late Cretaceous period. Subsequent syn- and post-collision synkinematic episodes tectonically juxtaposed the peri-Gondwanic sliver in the tectonized zone of Shyok Ophiolitic Mélange. The India-Asia collision, which took place ca. 60-50 Ma with the demise of Neo-Tethys Ocean, along the Indus Tsangpo Suture Zone, modified the geometry of accreted ophiolitic stack of the Shyok Suture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]