Continental margin basins in East Asia: tectonic implications of the Meso‐Cenozoic East China Sea pull‐apart basins

Abstract

The East China Sea basins, located in the West Pacific Continental Margin (WPCM) since the late Mesozoic, mainly include the East China Sea Shelf Basin (ECSSB) and the Okinawa Trough (OT). The WPCM and its adjacent seas can be tectonically divided into five units from west to east, including the Min‐Zhe Uplift, ECSSB, the Taiwan–Sinzi Belt, OT, and the Ryukyu Island Arc, which record regional tectonic evolution and geodynamics. Among those tectonic units, the ECSSB and the OT are important composite sedimentary pull‐apart basins, which experienced two stages of strike‐slip pull‐apart processes. In seismic profiles, the ECSSB and the OT show a double‐layer architecture with an upper half‐graben overlapping on a lower graben. In planar view, the ECSSB and the OT are characterized by faulted blocks from south to north in the early Cenozoic and by a zonation from west to east in the late Cenozoic. The faulted blocks with planar zonation and two‐layer vertical architecture entirely jumped eastward from the Min‐Zhe Uplift to the OT during the late Cenozoic. In addition, the whole palaeogeomorphology of the ECSSB changed notably, from pre‐Cenozoic highland or mountain into a Late Eocene continental margin with east‐tilting topography caused by the eastward tectonic jumping. The OT opened to develop into a back‐arc basin until the Miocene. Synthetic surface geological studies in the China mainland reveal that the Mesozoic tectonic setting of the WPCM is an Andean‐type continental margin developing many sinistral strike‐slip faults and pull‐apart basins and the Cenozoic tectonic setting of the WPCM is a Japanese‐type continental margin developing dextral strike‐slip faults and pull‐apart basins. Thus, the WPCM underwent a transition from Andean‐type to Japanese‐type continental margins at about 80 Ma (Late Cretaceous) and a transition in topography from a Mesozoic highland to a Cenozoic lowland, and then to below sea‐level basins. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The geological nature and geodynamics of the Okinawa Trough, Western Pacific

“…The border faults of each graben connected along the tectonic weak zone, and the four master NE-trending right-lateral strike-slip faults developed (Fig. The faults in the ECSSB performed dextral shearing again, and the ECSSB was characterized by subsidence (Suo et al, 2015). The basic tectonic framework of the OT had now been established.…”

“…What is the dynamic source of the PSP movement? But the Cenozoic eastward tectonic jumps in the East Asia Continental Margin (Li et al, 2013a;Suo et al, 2014Suo et al, , 2015, including the OT, result from the main dynamic source to the west. But the Cenozoic eastward tectonic jumps in the East Asia Continental Margin (Li et al, 2013a;Suo et al, 2014Suo et al, , 2015, including the OT, result from the main dynamic source to the west.…”

“…The activity of the faulting became weaker at the western boundary of the FD, while the fault set at the eastern boundary of the FD continued to grow. The OT is composed of several pull-apart basins due to the right-stepping distribution of the four master right-lateral strike-slip faults, which is also the same as in the ECSSB (Suo et al, , 2015. 4-L2).…”

Cenozoic evolution of the Tan–Lu Fault Zone (East China)—Constraints from seismic data

“…Xu et al, 1987;Okay and Sengor, 1992;Yin and Nie, 1993;Xu and Zhu, 1994;G. Zhu et al, 2009;Yin, 2010;Li et al, 2012aLi et al, ,b, 2013Suo et al, 2013); (2) many magmatic rocks evolving from ultrabasic, to basic-felsic and alkaline intruded along the TLFZ, resulting in the formation of a variety of ore deposits (including diamond, chromium, nickel, copper, iron-bearing magmatic deposits, gold, silver, molybdenum, tungsten, tin, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, and gemstone-bearing hydrothermal ore deposits), and therefore it has been investigated as major corridor for magmatism and metallogeny (e.g. Guo et al, 2013);…”

Coupling and transition of Meso–Cenozoic intracontinental deformation between the Taihang and Qinling Mountains

“…1). Asia has been a major testing ground for various competing models of continental deformation, due to its relatively well-understood plate boundary conditions in the Cenozoic (Yin, 2010;Li et al, 2012b,c,d;Zhou et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2013;Suo et al, 2014Suo et al, , 2015. Although it is well known that a combined result of the Indian-Eurasian continental collision and the Pacific oceanic http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2015.04.011 1367-9120/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.…”