Terminal suturing of Gondwana along the southern margin of South China Craton: Evidence from detrital zircon U-Pb ages and Hf isotopes in Cambrian and Ordovician strata, Hainan Island

Abstract

Hainan Island, located near the southern end of mainland South China, consists of the

Reconstructing South China in Phanerozoic and Precambrian supercontinents

“…Provenance and faunal data for early Paleozoic sandstones from the Sanya Block, suggest this region only became part of South China in the early to mid-Ordovician (Xu et al, 2014b). U-Pb ages and Hf isotope compositions of detrital…”

“…A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T (Xu et al, 2014b). The Qiongzhong Block remained part of the southeastern convergent plate margin of the South China Craton in the early Paleozoic.…”

“…During Gondwana assembly IndiaCathaysia collided with the Western Australia-Mawson block along the Kuunga orogen resulting in the accretion of the Sanya Block to the rest of South China (Xu et al, 2014b). Hainan Island (Xu et al, 2014b), b) the Cambrian strata below the unconformity in the Sanya region, Hainan Island (Xu et al, 2014b), c) Early Paleozoic strata in South…”

Detrital zircon U–Pb ages of the Proterozoic metaclastic-sedimentary rocks in Hainan Province of South China: New constraints on the depositional time, source area, and tectonic setting of the Shilu Fe–Co–Cu ore district

“…Furthermore, Zhang et al (2014) proposed that the Nanhai terrane (including the Hainan massif) could be the missing link between South China and the Gondwana supercontinent, with the Zhenghe-Dapu fault as the suture zone between South China and the Nanhai terrane. Xu et al (2014b) suggested that Sanya Block on Hainan Island was separated from mainland South China (including the Qiongzhong Block, Hainan Island) until early to mid-Ordovician and that the juxtaposition of South China and West Australian cratons represented the final assembly of Gondwana. The previous researches have revealed the distinct tectonothermal events between Hainan Island and the South China.…”

Detrital zircon U–Pb geochronology, Lu–Hf isotopes and REE geochemistry constrains on the provenance and tectonic setting of Indochina Block in the Paleozoic

“…The position of the Indochina Block in Gondwana has been of considerable controversy (Usuki et al, 2013). A number of studies suggest that Indochina Block was adjacent to the India-Australia margin of Gondwana, and most probably located close to north of India (Metcalfe, 1996(Metcalfe, , 2006Wang et al, 2010;Usuki et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2014). Torsvik and Cocks (2009) and Cawood et al (2013), however, plotted the Indochina Block as a discrete block in the paleo-Pacific, far away from the north margin of East Gondwana.…”