Walled sedimentary basins of China

Abstract

Central Asia contains numerous closed geomorphic basins that are surrounded by active mountain ranges, but exhibit little internal deformation.These areas commonly coincide with sedimentary basins that record a much older history of continuous internal drainage, evidenced by lacustrine and associated alluvial deposits that date as back far as the Late Permian.We propose the new descriptive term 'walled basin' , in recognition of the unique physiography of basins that impound sediments within peripheral orogenic walls that are maintained over relatively long geologic time scales.Walled basins are surrounded by dominantly contractional orogenic uplifts, but are themselves relatively undeformed.They typically record multiple episodes of alluvial and lacustrine sedimentation, that are often correlated with evidence for recurrent deformation of basin-bounding uplifts.The distribution of walled basins in Asia appears to correspond to crustal heterogeneities inherited from the complex accretionary history of the continent, but actual mechanisms for maintaining stable basin interiors over periods as long as $250 my remain uncertain. Modern walled basins in Asia are restricted to arid or semiarid regions, due to the capacity of large rivers to defeat drainage barriers in more humid areas.Walled basins lie at lower elevations than Asia as whole, and they appear to impede rather than promote plateau growth.Contractile deformation continued in western China from the latest Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. Contraction and renewed uplift of theTian Shan during this time broadly coincided with collision of the Lhasa block to the south, and r

Source Rock Potential and Depositional Environment of Upper Permian Oil Shales of the Lucaogou Formation in the Southeastern Junggar Basin, Northwest China

“…Established from organic geochemical data the water depth distribution agrees well with the assumption about the area's paleogeography put forward by Peng et al [13], Carroll et al [16] and Wartes et al [20]. Based on the correlation between the lithostratigraphic cross sections of Upper Permian rocks, the Junggar and Turpan-Hami basins were supposed to have been occupied by a single large lake that was comparable in size to the modern Caspian Sea [16,20].…”

“…Based on the correlation between the lithostratigraphic cross sections of Upper Permian rocks, the Junggar and Turpan-Hami basins were supposed to have been occupied by a single large lake that was comparable in size to the modern Caspian Sea [16,20]. According to the well connecting profile and sequence stratigraphic data, Peng et al [13] suggested that the YMS, SMG and SGH sections were occupied by a single large lake during the deposition period of the Lucaogou Formation, with the Sangonghe section as a depocenter having the maximum water depth and being further away from the external source.…”

“…1a). The basement of the basin appears to be accretionary oceanic rocks and island arcs that were stabilized as late as the Carboniferous to the Early Permian [14,16]. The Junggar Basin is a giant polycyclic superposition basin with multiple sets of hydrocarbon source rocks, with the Upper Permian source rocks, which are primarily exposed at the northern foothill of Bogda Mountain and the front of Kelameili Mountain, being the most important among them [11].…”

The Triassic to Early Jurassic palynological record of the Tarim Basin, China

“…In China, terrestrial Mesozoic successions are widely distributed across several sedimentary basins including the Junggar, Tarim, Ordos and Sichuan basins (e.g. Qu 1980;Qu and Wang 1986;Li et al 2001;Carroll et al 2010). These basins possess well-preserved plant macrofossil (e.g.…”

Heavy Mineral Characteristics and Their Implication for Provenance of the Middle to Upper Triassic on the Northwest Margin of Junggar Basin, North China

“…A series of methods exist for the analysis of the provenance of rocks, such as variation of seismic waves, glutinite body thickness statistics, ZTR index distribution, detrital composition observation, geochemistry analysis, fission-track and identification of pollen types (Yalcin, 2008;Yang et al, 2009;Carroll et al, 2010;Zheng et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014;Kang et al, 2014;Zhao et al, 2014). Among these methods, the method involving the use of a heavy mineral combination and its content variation of clastic rocks to both trace the provenance and obtain the source rock information has been widely applied (Cao et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2013).…”