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TECTONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 2, PAGES 139–166, 1983

SPECULATIONS ON THE MESOZOIC PLATE TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF EASTERN CHINA

Michael P. Klimetz

Department of Geological Sciences, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222

Abstract

Several orogenic belts transecting eastern China are the sites of former convergent plate margins, although there have been varying views on the collisional framework of individual continental blocks, styles of convergence at these zones, and the timing of respective collisions. A tectonic study of eastern China, Mongolia and the southern Soviet Far East indicates the collision of the South China Block with a combined North China-Northeast China Fold Zone Block in the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic, their collective suturing to Eurasia in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, followed by the Sikhote Alin-Japan Block in the Mid to Late Cretaceous. The evidence is as follows: (1) A linear belt of Late Triassic-Early Cretaceous granites and granodiorites trends east from the Qinlingshan through the Dabieshan to the Huaiyang massif. Ophiolites, flysch, subduction zone melange, a paired metamorphic belt indicating north dipping subduction and marine strata of Carboniferous to Late Triassic age from the Qinlingshan define the suture between the North and South China Blocks, (2) A sinuous belt of ultramafics, blueschists, silicic to intermediate magmatism and west and north vergent folds and thrusts trend from the west margin of the Ordos Basin through central Inner Mongolia and along the east Great Khingan Range to the Amur River. Coupled with a Mid Jurassic-Early Creataceous unconformity a suturing of eastern Chinese blocks to Eurasia along this zone is suggested, (3) A fold and thrust belt with ultramafics, flysch, blueschists and subduction zone melange along the Ussuri River in northeast China indicates the suturing of the Sikhote Alin-Japan Block to Eurasia along a west dipping subduction zone in the Mid to Late Cretaceous. Similarly, a tectonic study of southern China and Southeast Asia has revealed a complex regional mosaic of suture-bounded terrains which nucleated about the eastern, western and southern margins of the Yangtze Craton during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. The evidence is as follows: (4) A north–south trending belt of ophiolites, blueschists, calc-alkaline volcanics and subduction zone melange, including granites, granodiorites arid strongly deformed marine strata all of Late Triassic age exposed in the Longmenshan of Sichuan merge with the Kekexilishan ophiolite zone Into the Ailaoshan-Tengtiaohe ophiolite and blueschist belt in central Yunnan along which the Songban-Ganzi Complex and the Shan-Thai-Malaya Block join the Craton, and (5) A southeastern prolongation of the Ailaoshan-Tengtiaohe belt bifurcates into the southeast trending Konvoi zone of northern Vietnam and the north–south trending Pak Lay-Luang Prabang zone of Laos and eastern Thailand. Zones of ophiolite, calc-alkaline volcanics and strong Late Triassic deformation, they separate the Indosinia and Shan-Thai-Malaya Blocks from the Craton respectively. These findings differ significantly from previous interpretations of a Late Paleozoic consolidation of South–Eastern Asia as well as disputing the existence of a true Pangea.

Received 19 November 1982; accepted 3 March 1983.

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Citation: Klimetz, M. P. (1983), SPECULATIONS ON THE MESOZOIC PLATE TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF EASTERN CHINA, Tectonics, 2(2), 139–166.

Copyright 1983 by the American Geophysical Union.