Restoring the Missing Late Cretaceous Arc of Iran

Abstract Persistent arc magmatism archives fluid transport and mantle partial melting in subduction zones. However, arc magmatism often exhibits different magmatic records along the strike, as seen in the Tethyan orogenic belt. During Neo‐Tethys subduction under Iran, there was pulsed arc magmatism with Middle Jurassic and Eocene magmatic flare‐ups. There are few Late Cretaceous magmatic records preserved in Iran. The Zagros fold‐and‐thrust belt of Iran and Iraq includes the deformed passive continental margin of Arabia, but sparse records of pre‐collisional, forearc rocks along the suture zone and southwest of the arc are preserved on the Eurasian side of the collision zone. Through provenance analysis of the western Makran accretionary wedge in southeastern Iran, we identify a Late Cretaceous continental arc and forearc that once existed in southwest Iran but disappeared and/or displaced to the northwest in Turkey by later subduction zone tectonics. We suggest that subduction erosion and large‐scale strike‐slip displacement by oblique subduction are responsible for destroying the continuous Tethyan continental arc.