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Mesoscopic, magnetic and petrofabric study of the High Himalayan gneisses and leucogranite along oblique and frontal ramps of the Vaikrita Thrust in Satluj and Bhagirathi valleys: Thrust locking and superposed folding

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Abstract

Field, microstructural and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) studies were performed along the oblique thrust ramp of the Satluj river valley and frontal thrust ramp of the Bhagirathi river valley. The presence of asymmetric and sheath folds indicates intense shearing near the thrust. The simple shear gradually decreases with an increase in distance from the thrust and pure shear with upright folds becomes prominent. The AMS studies suggest slightly higher pure shear in the frontal ramp region as compared to the oblique ramp region where oblique slip was predominant. The sense of shear criteria and orientation of superposed folds indicate locking of the thrust. Normal faults are the youngest structure.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express sincere gratitude towards the Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, for providing the necessary facilities and granting permission to publish this work. The authors are thankful to Drs R J Lisle and Soumyajit Mukherjee for internal review of the paper and also thankful to Prof M A Mamtani and an anonymous reviewer for their thorough and critical reviews and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. Dr S J Sangode helped in the rock magnetic analysis and interpretation. Dr K Sen helped during the fieldwork and data interpretation. KT acknowledges the CSIR for financial support [grant no. 331294/2K13/1/ 09/420(004)/2014) EMR-1].

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Correspondence to Kavita Tripathi.

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Tripathi, K., Dubey, A.K. & Jayangondaperumal, R. Mesoscopic, magnetic and petrofabric study of the High Himalayan gneisses and leucogranite along oblique and frontal ramps of the Vaikrita Thrust in Satluj and Bhagirathi valleys: Thrust locking and superposed folding. J Earth Syst Sci 128, 77 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-019-1094-9

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