MULTI-ARC BASIN SYSTEM OF THE KUNLUN OROGENIC BELT AND PAN-CATHYSIAN CONTINENTAL ACCRETION

After Rodinia supercontinent was disintegrated in Late Proterozoic, an ocean, namely, Tethys Ocean, occurred between Gondwana continental group and Pan-Cathaysian continental group from Late Proterozoic to Mesozoic. From Early Paleozoic to Mesozoic, Tethys Ocean was subducted toward Pan-Cathaysian block group, which results in backarc expansion, arc-land collision and forearc accretion. When the backarc basin expands and reaches the small oceanic basin, ophiolite melange will be generated. As accretion had already occurred in the south of the continental margin in the earlier stage, the succeeding backarc expansion and the frontal arc position were migrated toward south correspondingly. Therefore, multiple ophiolite belts and magmatic rock belts occurred, and show a trend of decreasing age from north toward south. As the continental margin was split and migrated toward south and reached a high latitude position, i.e., with the shortening and subduction of oceanic crust, the sedimentary bodies at high latitude was accreted continuously toward low latitude area together with the formation of oceanic island, mixing of cold-type and warm-type organism was generated. Moreover,blocks split and separated from Pan-Cathaysian or Gondwana continental group cannot traverse the oceanic median ridge and joins with another continental block. As a result, the Kunlun belt on the SW margin of the Pan-Cathaysian land was resulted from the multi-arc orogenesis such as the backarc seabed expansion, arc-arc collision, arc-land collision oceanic bed, and the continuous southward accretion process.

The Late Proterozoic Continental Accretionary History of the Southeastern Margin of Jiangnania

The newly obtained Sm-Nd isochron ages are 1034 Ma and 935 Ma for ophiolites from northeasternJiangxi and Fuchuan, southern Anhui respectively. There exist two unconformity surfaces under the initialLate Proterozoic volcanics as well as the Sinian rocks. The Xiuning intrusive body which was intruded into theShangxi Group in southern Anhui yields a whole-rock Rb-Sr isochron age of 963 Ma. There occurs a belt ofLate Proterozoic calc-alkali volcanic rocks extending from northeastern Jiangxi to northwestern Zhejiang. Inthe light of the above facts, the authors consider that the southeastern margin of Jiangnania is an ancient islandarc. At about 1000 Ma ago, the Huanan (South China) oceanic crust was subducted along the line linking Dex-ing and Hangzhou, thus starting the accretion of the island arc system to Jiangnania. At 800 Ma ago Cathaysiaand Jiangnania converged together along the Jiangshan-Shaoxing line, marking the end of the accretion.

Expanding the Wilson Cycle Based on Worldwide Comparison of Continental Structures Revealed by Lithospheric Geophysical Investigations

Worldwide comparison of lithospheric investigation results achieved from projects of COCORP, BIRPS, DEKORP, LITHOPROBE, ICDP, ECORS and SINOPROBE enables us to expand the classical Wilson cycle, which mainly describes evolution of ocean plates, into a complete and detailed cycle that describes generation, development and evolution of both ocean and continent plates. The expanded Wilson cycle presented in this paper introduces the evolution sequences of continental lithospheric processes by adding into the classical Wilson cycle with ocean-continent transition, continental collision and accretion, as well as continental rifting and splitting in details. These mentioned continental lithospheric processes have been presented by the author in a series of recent review papers in detail, and their summary and further deduction is presented in this paper.