Cretaceous to Miocene NW Pacific Plate Kinematic Constraints: Paleomagnetism and Ar–Ar Geochronology in the Mineoka Ophiolite Mélange (Japan)

Abstract

East Asia has witnessed the birth and demise of oceanic plates at least, during the latest 500 million years. Subduction of numerous oceanic plates: Eurasian (Amur), Pacific, North America (Okhotsk), Indo-Australia, Caroline, and Philippine Sea plates formed a complex collage of ophiolites, volcanic arcs, orogenic belts, and continental fragments (i.e., terranes, blocks, and massifs) over East Asia (e.g.

Syn‐Subduction Strike‐Slip Faults Shape an Accretionary Orogen and its Provenance Signatures: Insights From Sikhote‐Alin in NE Asia During the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

“…Pacific accretionary complexes are well preserved in the Sikhote‐Alin orogenic belt of the Russian Far East and Japanese Islands. In the Japanese Islands, long‐term subduction of the Paleo‐Pacific oceanic plates gave rise to several generations of high‐pressure metamorphic rocks, continental arc magmatism, fore‐arc basins, emplacements of ophiolites and subduction‐related structures from the Jurassic, or even earlier (Ganbat et al., 2021; Isozaki, 2019; Isozaki et al., 2010; Maruyama et al., 1997; Vaes et al., 2019). Although separated from the Asian mainland since the opening of the Japan Sea in the Miocene (Isozaki, 2019; Kobayashi, 1941, 1956; Otofuji et al., 1985), the Japanese Islands were originally correlated with, and shared similar geologic history with the Sikhote‐Alin orogenic belt (Jahn et al., 2015; Khanchuk, 2001; Khanchuk et al., 2016; K. Liu, Zhang, Wilde, Liu, et al., 2017).…”