Mesozoic crust-mantle interaction beneath the North China craton: A consequence of the dispersal of Gondwanaland and accretion of Asia
- 1Department of Applied Geology, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia
- 2Department of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 9825, Beijing, China
- 3Department of Mining and Exploration Geology, West Australian School of Mines, Curtin University of Technology, Kalgoorlie, WA 6433, Australia
- 4Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulum Road, Hong Kong, China
Abstract
We present evidence from zircons entrained within lower-crustal xenoliths in the Cenozoic Hannuoba Basalt of multiple melting events beneath the North China craton in the late Mesozoic. Peak activity was between 180 and 80 Ma, the upper crustal signature of which was the generation of voluminous granitoids and related volcanic rocks, emplacement of dioritic and lamprophyric dikes, and widespread gold mineralization. The process involved partial loss of mantle lithosphere, accompanied by wholesale rising of asthenospheric mantle beneath eastern China. We correlate these events with lithospheric thinning resulting from the breakup and dispersal of Gondwanaland, accompanied by a major mantle overturn, fueled by the destruction of oceanic lithosphere and triggered by its sinking into the lower mantle during the subsequent accretion of Asia.
Footnotes
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↵* wildeslithos.curtin.edu.au
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↵GSA Data Repository item 2003117, Appendix 1, Table DR1, and Figures DR1 and DR2, is available online at www.geosociety.org/pubs/ft2003.htm, or on request from editinggeosociety.org or Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, USA.
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- Accepted May 29, 2003.
- Received January 20, 2003.
- Revision received May 26, 2003.
- Geological Society of America
