Late Permian ultrapotassic rhyolites in SE Thailand: evidence for a Palaeotethyan continental rift basin

Abstract

Volcanic rocks in the Chanthaburi zone are rarely reported and important for investigating the tectonic evolution of Paleotethyan Ocean in SE Thailand. Four rhyolitic samples from the Ko Chang Island yield zircon ages of 254–258 Ma, confirming the presence of Late Permian volcanic rocks in SE Thailand. These rocks consist of Group 1 rhyolites and Group 2 rhyolitic ignimbrites and have high K2O contents of 4.92–7.10 wt.% and A/CNK values of 1.10–1.69. They are enriched in LREEs, Rb, Th, U, Zr and Y, and show negative anomalies of Ba, Sr, Nb, Ta and Ti with obvious Eu anomalies. Their whole-rock εNd (t) values range from −1.7 to −3.1. Zircon in-situ εHf (t) and δ18O values range from 0.0 to +5.6 and 8.2‰ to 9.6‰, respectively. They belong to peraluminous, ultrapotassic A-type rhyolites, and were derived from partial melting of a mixed source of Mesoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks with a component of juvenile mafic crust. These ultrapotassic rhyolites formed in a continental rift setting in response to the rollback of subducted Paleotethyan oceanic slab beneath the Indochina Block. Combining previous geological observations, we propose that there are some sporadically distributed continental rift basins along the Eastern Paleotethyan domain during the Permian.Supplementary material:https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5635390