Continental- Margin Structure of Northeast China and Its Adjacent Areas

The continental margin of Northeast China and its adjacent areas is composed of two tectonic belts. The inner belt is a collage made up of fragments resulting from breakup of an old land with the north part related to the evolution of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean and the south part to the evolution of the Palaeo - Pacific Ocean. The outer belt is a Mesozoic terrane, which is a melange made up of fragments of the Late Palaeozoic to Early Mesozoic oceanic crust and the Late M esozoic trench accumulations.There existed another ocean-the Palaeo - Pacific Ocean during the period from the closing of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean to the opening of the modern Pacific Ocean or from the Devonian to Jurassic, and the ocean-floor spreading of the Palaeo - Pacific Ocean led to the formation of the above-mentioned tectonic belts. The development of the strike-slip fault system after the Late Jurassic and the formation of an epicontinental volcano -plutonic rock belt in the Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary are attributed to the interaction between the modern Pacific plate and the Eurasian plate.