Chemical indexes of Paleoproterozoic sedimentary rocks from Liaohe Group,North China Craton:Implications for paleoclimate and provenance

Paleoproterozoic supracrustal materials have been widely identified in North China Craton,such as the Liaohe-,Hutuo-and Lyuliang groups.The Liaohe Group in the eastern part of the North China Craton is dominated by deformed and metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic successions.Compared with that of the coeval volcanic rocks,geochemistry of the sedimentary rocks from the Liaohe Group has rarely been studied in detail,which can possibly provide information on the paleoclimate and provenance.The authors analyzed the whole-rock and detrital zircon geochemistry of sedimentary rocks from the Liaohe Group against a uniform process and proposed their different ways of paleoweathering of the lower and upper formations.That is to say,although the lower and upper formations within the Liaohe Group might be derived from the similar source composition in a tectonically active setting,the paleoclimate that they experienced was not exactly the same.The predominant derivations are the Paleoproterozoic granitoids and basalts within the Liaohe Group,with minor input of Archean continental crust.This study highlights the contributions of the Paleoproterozoic mafic sources,which has been generally overlooked in the previous researches.