No vertical axis rotations during Neogene transpressional orogeny in the NE Gobi Altai: coinciding Mongolian and Eurasian early Cretaceous apparent polar wander paths

Here we test the role of vertical axis rotations during transpressional mountain building. To this end, we carried out a paleomagnetic study in the NE Gobi Altai of southern Mongolia, sampling widely exposed lower Cretaceous lavas allowing comparison of rotation histories of the Ih Bogd, Baga Bogd and Artz Bogd restraining bends at the eastern termination of the Bogd strike-slip zone. We provide new 40Ar/39Ar ages to show that the stratigraphy of mafic lavas and fluvio-lacustrine sediments on the southern flanks of Mt Ih Bogd and Mt Baga Bogd have ages between ~125 and ~122 Ma, and a mafic sill that intrudes the sequence has an age of 118.2 ± 0.8 Ma. The lavas are older than previously dated lavas south of Artz Bogd, with ages of 119-115 Ma. Paleomagnetic results from the 119-115 Ma lavas south of Artz Bogd show a significant steeper inclination than both results from 125-122 Ma lavas of Baga Bogd and Ih Bogd, as well as from newly sampled and previously published younger lavas and necks of the 107-92 Ma Tsost Magmatic Field and Shovon and Khurmen Uul basalts. We explain this result by insufficient averaging of secular variation and small errors induced by overcorrection of bedding tilt. We show that individual lavas in the SE Artz Bogd locality represent individual spot readings of the Earth's magnetic field and integrate all results obtained from lower Cretaceous lavas in the Gobi Altai. We present a pole, or rather, an apparent polar wander path without significant plate motion from ~125-95 Ma, with n=126, ë=80.8, ö=158.4, ê=25.3, A95=2.5, paleo-latitude = 48.2 with a scatter Së=16.7 (Sl=15.3, Su=17.8) and a regionally consistent direction for the Gobi Altai of D/I = 11.1/65.9, ÄD/ÄI = 3.8/1.9. This is one of the best-determined paleopoles/APWP's for Asia. There is no significant deviation of the 125-95 Ma pole position of the Gobi Altai from the reference positions of Eurasia. Formation of the Ih Bogd, Baga Bogd and Artz Bogd restraining bends was thus not associated with vertical axis rotations larger than our error margin of ~10°. From this we conclude that the Bogd strike-slip zone is a weak fault zone, in which shear is localised, comparable to the large strike-slip systems further south in Tibet, such as the Altyn Tagh fault