Conclusion
We suggest that the Indus Formation is overlain by a molasse that formed as an apron at the margins of the Ladakh Batholith, as it was exhumed by extensional shear zones, as would occur during exposure of a core complex. Material eroded from the batholith was transported and accumulated onto the topographically lower, but structurally higher Indus Formation (in the upper plate of the south-dipping extensional faults formed at the margin of the batholith). Later inversion resulted in back thrusting of the Indus Formation and overlying Indus Molasse, towards the north, back over the Ladakh Batholith. This back-thrusting led to the formation of recumbent folds overprinted by tight upright folds.
From this data emerges the view that, at one stage within a relatively complex history of accretion during convergence of India and Asia, the exhumation of a sequence of metamorphic core complexes took place as the result of a period of widespread extensional tectonism from mid-Miocene or younger. Finally, Himalayan orogenesis resulted in renewed crustal shortening, and inverted the southern margin of the Ladakh core complex, deforming the Indus Formation and the Indus Molasse as a single unit.