Provenance of Detrital Magnetites from Quaternary Sediments in the Yichang Area and its Significance to the Birth of the Three Gorges, Yangtze River

Objective In recent years, the birth time and evolution of the Three Gorges, Yangtze River has become a focused topic. Different from previous studies, this study used provenance analysis of Quaternary sediments to discuss this question. Among those minerals in Quaternary sediments, magnetite was rarely studied. This paper presents element geochemistry and backscatter images of detrital magnetites from the Quaternary sediments in the Yichang area of Hubei Province. By discussing the provenance changes of detratic magnetites, we suggested the birth time of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River.

Sedimentology,provenance and geochronology of the Miocene Qiuwu Formation:Implication for the uplift history of Southern Tibet

Located on the south of the Gangdese,the Qiuwu Formation has traditionally been considered as Eocene coal-bearing clastic sediments consisting of sandstone,mudstone and conglomerate,unconformably on top of Gangdese batholith.However,its precise age and depositional environment remain ambiguous.Here,we present a newly measured stratigraphic section near the Ngamring County,western Xigaze.Detrital zircon U-Pb ages were also applied to trace the provenance of sediments and to constrain the maximum depositional age of the Qiuwu Formation.Sedimentary facies analyses indicate subaqueous fan and alluvial fan depositional environments.Clast composition of the conglomerate is dominated by magmatic rocks at the lower part,while chert and mafic detritus occur in the upper part,suggesting a southern source.Sandstone modal analyses indicate that the compositions of quartz,feldspar and lithic grains changed from transitional arc to dissected arc,implying the unroofing of the Gangdese arc.Detrital zircon U-Pb ages of the Qiuwu Formation are compared with those from Gangdese magmatic rocks and Yarlung-Zangbo ophiolites,suggesting that the Gangdese arc is a main source of the Qiuwu detritus and that the southern source played a role during the later stage.The major peak of detrital zircon ages is at 45-55 Ma,which corresponds to Linzizong volcanic rocks in southern Gangdese arc.The weighted mean age of the five youngest zircons from the lower part of the section is 21.0 ± 2.2 Ma,suggesting that the Qiuwu Formation was deposited in early Miocene,coeval with other conglomerates exposed along the southern margin of Gangdese.Combining new observations with previously published data,we propose that the provenance of the Qiuwu Formation had shifted from a single northern source to double sources from both the north and the south.Activities of Great Counter Thrust were primarily responsible for the shift by making the south area a high elevation to provide sediments for the Qiuwu Formation.

Detrital zircon dating and tracing the provenance of dinosaur bone beds from the Late Cretaceous Wangshi Group in Zhucheng, Shandong, East China

The mass burial of dinosaur bone fossils in the Late Cretaceous Wangshi Group in Zhu- cheng, Shandong Province has been a research focus in recent years. However, the prov- enance of the dinosaur bone fossils and the accurate depositional age of the bone beds remain ambiguous. Through U-Pb dating of detrital zircons collected from six conglom- erate samples from the dinosaur bone beds, we found that the youngest single grain age （YSG） of sample 090414-24-D was 77.3 Ma, representing the maximum depositional age of the dinosaur fossil beds and sediments. This also indicates that the Hongtuya Formation was deposited during the Campanian. Dating results revealed an age peak of 120 110 Ma, which corresponds with the peak age of volcanic rocks of the Lower Cretaceous Qingshan Group. The volcanic rocks of the Qingshan Group are mainly exposed in Laiyang, to the north of Zhucheng, although a few also appear to the south and northwest. Through analysis of conglomerate composition and palaeocurrents in the sediments containing the bone beds, we found that the three different data sets of gravel compositions of the con- glomerates were mainly composed of volcanic or pyroclastic rocks. Three different data sets of palaeocurrents suggested that the main sediment source of the Wangshi Group dinosaur bone beds was from the north-northwest of the Basin. Only one data set had a provenance south of the basin. This study revealed that the areas of Laiyang and the Yishu Fault Zone were the main provenance areas of both the dinosaur bone fossils and the sediments of the Wangshi Group in Zhucheng. The southern margin of the Zhucheng Basin may be a secondary source area. This research provides an important basis for judging the deposition time and the sediment source of fossil layers in the Wangshi Group, as well as reconstructing the palaeogeography of the Wangshi Group in the liaolai Basin.

Unmixing detrital zircon U-Pb ages reveals tectonic and climatic depositional influences on the Carboniferous Ansilta Formation,Calingasta-Uspallata Basin,Western Argentina

The Late Paleozoic Ice Age(LPIA)was a principal control of sedimentation across Gondwana from the late Devonian through early Permian.We assess the hypothesis that glacial to interglacial transitions in western Argentina were the primary control influencing sediment routing patterns among the various Carboniferous-Permian basins in western Argentina.The Carboniferous Ansilta Formation consists of glaciomarine,nearshore,and fluvial systems deposited during the LPIA along the eastern margin of the Calingasta-Uspallata Basin in Argentina.The lower,glacially influenced succession of the Ansilta Formation records at least five glacial advances;the upper succession of consists of progradational shallow marine,deltaic,and fluvial strata.We combine 1225 new U-Pb zircon ages from six samples of the Carboniferous Ansilta Formation in the Calingasta-Uspallata Basin with 5864 U-Pb ages from 147 pub-lished samples in the detrital Pymix forward mixture model to characterize provenance shifts.For the glacially influenced lower Ansilta Formation,sediment was derived locally from the Protoprecordillera,which was a prominent highland with alpine glaciers flowing west and east into the Calingasta-Uspallata and Paganzo basins,respectively.Thus,there was little or no connection between these two basins during Serpukhovian-Bashkirian glaciation.The fluvial/deltaic upper Ansilta had distal sediment sources in the Sierras Pampeanas.Furthermore,our results support the collapse of the Protoprecordillera topographic barrier,enabling drainage patterns connecting the Paganzo and Calingasta-Uspallata basins by late Pennsylvanian-early Permian time.