Assessing the long-term low-temperature thermal evolution of the central Indian Bundelkhand craton with a complex apatite and zircon (U-Th)/He dataset

Modern approaches in low-temperature thermochronometry are capable of extracting long-term thermal histories from cratonic settings that may elucidate potential drivers of deep-time phases of intracontinental burial and erosion. Here, we assess the utilization of the Radiation Damage Accumulation and Annealing Model for apatite (RDAAM) and zircon (ZRDAAM) to track the long-term low-temperature thermal evolution of the Archean Bundelkhand craton and the surrounding undeformed strata of the ∼1.7–0.9 Ga Vindhyan successions in central India. We correspondingly interpret a complex basement and detrital zircon and apatite (U-Th)/He (ZHe and AHe, respectively) dataset in light of observed model limitations and known geologic context. ZHe and AHe dates from across the craton reveal a significant (>300 Myr) date inversion between the two systems within grains with moderate to high effective uranium (eU) concentrations. Inverse thermal models utilizing current ZRDAAM and RDAAM parameters are not capable of reproducing observed coupled basement ZHe and AHe data for the same thermal history. However, meaningful thermal information can be extracted from AHe inverse models coupled with a forward modeling approach applied to detrital ZHe data from Vindhyan deposits, which have notably lower eU concentrations and yield significantly older ZHe dates (between ∼1,475 and 575 Ma) than basement zircon. Resulting thermal models indicate that the Bundelkhand craton experienced peak burial temperatures of ∼150°C between 850 and 475 Ma, followed by a major crustal cooling event at ∼350–310 Ma, possibly driven by late Paleozoic glaciations and/or epeirorogenic uplift. Inverse models including AHe data require a Deccan Traps related thermal perturbation between ∼66 and 65 Ma, and we suspect that this event overprinted basement zircon with moderate to high eU concentrations. Although the effects of zonation, grain morphology, and/or uncertainties in damage-annealing parameters contribute to disparities between predicted and observed AHe and ZHe dates, these factors alone cannot account for the major ZHe and AHe date inversion observed from the Bundelkhand craton. Instead, it is likely the case that current damage-dependent models for 4He diffusion are not adequately calibrated at the resolution necessary to predict short-lived thermal perturbations that occurred in a late phase relative to a prolonged period of extensive damage accumulation.