Implications of subduction and subduction zone migration of the Paleo-Pacific Plate beneath eastern North China, based on distribution, geochronology, and geochemistry of Late Mesozoic volcanic rocks

Abstract

Several major volcanic zones are distributed across the eastern North China Craton, from northwest to southeast: the Greater Xing'an Range, Jibei-Liaoxi, Xishan, and Songliao Basins, and the Yanji, Huanghua, and Ludong volcanic zones. The Huanghua depression within the Bohai Bay Basin was filled by middle Late Mesozoic volcanic rocks and abundant Cenozoic alkaline basalts. Zircon LA-ICP-MS and SHRIMP U-Pb dating show that basicintermediate volcanic rocks were extruded in the Early Cretaceous of 118.8 ± 1.0 Ma (weighted mean 206 Pb/ 238 U age), before Late Cretaceous acid lavas at 71.5 ± 2.6 Ma. An inherited zircon from andesite has a Paleoprotoerozoic core crystallization age of 2,424 ± 22 Ma ( 206 Pb/ 207 Pb age) indicating that the basement of the Bohai Bay Basin is part of the North China Craton. Early Cretaceous basic and intermediate lavas are characterized by strong enrichments in LREE and LILE and depletions in HREE and HFSE, indicating a volcanic arc origin related to oceanic subduction. Depletion in Zr only occurs in basic and intermediate volcanic rocks, while depletions in Sr and Ti exist only in acid samples, indicating that the acid series is not genetically related to the basic-intermediate series. Formation ages and geochemical features indicate that the Late Cretaceous acid lavas are products of crustal remelting in an extensional regime.Combined information from all these volcanic zones shows that subduction-related volcanic rocks were generated in the Jibei-Liaoxi and Xishan volcanic zones during the Early Jurassic, about 60 Ma earlier than their analogues extruded in the Huanghua and Ludong volcanic zones during the Early Cretaceous. This younging trend also exists in the youngest extension-related volcanism in each of these zones: Early Cretaceous asthenosphere-derived alkaline basalts in the northwest and Late Cretaceous in the southeast. A tectonic model of northwestward subduction and continuous oceanward retreat of the Paleo-Pacific Plate is proposed to explain the migration pattern of both arc-related and post-subduction extensionrelated volcanic rocks. As the subduction zone continuously migrated, active continental margin and backarc regimes successively played their roles in different parts of North China during the Late Mesozoic (J 1 -K 2 ).

Uplift history of the Jiaodong Peninsula, eastern North China Craton: implications for lithosphere thinning and gold mineralization

“…The igneous activity, especially asthenospheric mantle-derived magmatism, and basin evolution can constrain the timescale of lithosphere thinning and decratonization in the NCC. The Late Cretaceous basaltic rocks mainly distributed in Liaoning Province (70.1–92.5 Ma) (Zhang et al 2006; Kuang et al 2012), Shandong Province (73.5 Ma) (Yan et al 2003) and Bohai Bay Basin (71.5 Ma) (Zhang et al 2011) in the eastern NCC (Fig. 1).…”

Tectonic constraints to Cretaceous magmatic arc deduced from detrital heavy minerals in northeastern Japan – evidence from detrital garnets, tourmalines and chromian spinels

“…Remarkable igneous activity related to the subduction of young and hot plate was reported around eastern Asia, i.e. eastern part of the North China (Ling et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2011), Korean peninsula (Kim et al, 2005) and Japanese islands (Kinoshita, 1995(Kinoshita, , 2002Hara and Kimura, 2008). Though the detail of paleogeography of the Japanese islands are still obscure, the subduction of young and hot plate widely affected to northern Japan, resulting the occurrence of adakitic activity of Lower Cretaceous granites and Lower Cretaceous to Eocene high-Mg andesite (Watanabe et al, 1993;Tsuchiya et al, 2005Tsuchiya et al, , 2007.…”

Ambient Noise Tomography of the Shandong Province and its Implication for Cenozoic Intraplate Volcanism in Eastern China

“…Besides the intraplate volcanism during the Cenozoic era, the eastern part of the North China Craton, including the Jiaodong region, had also experienced large-scale lithosphere thinning, extensive magmatic intrusion, and volcanic eruptions during the Mesozoic Yanshanian orogeny (Bunge & Grand, 2000;Zhang et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2017). Since our tomographic images cannot reveal the ancient status of the Earth during the Early Cretaceous (~140-110 Ma), we only discuss the origins of the Cenozoic intraplate volcanisms in this paper.…”