Exotic origin of the Chinese continental shelf: new insights into the tectonic evolution of the western Pacific and eastern China since the Mesozoic

Basalts and picrites from a plume-type ophiolite in the South Qilian Accretionary Belt, Qilian Orogen: Accretion of a Cambrian Oceanic Plateau?

“…When a subducting ocean plate contains a body that is too buoyant to subduct the phenomenon of "trench jam" can occur (e.g., Abbott et al, 1997;Niu et al, 2003Niu et al, , 2015, with the consequence that a new subduction zone and volcanic arc are generated. Oceanic plateaus are the best candidates for such a buoyant and unsubductable mass, given the relatively low densities of the high percentage melts present in such crust (Herzberg, 1999;Niu and Batiza, 1991;Niu et al, 2003; O'Hara, 1973).…”

Geochronology and geochemistry of Late Cretaceous–Paleocene granitoids in the Sikhote-Alin Orogenic Belt: Petrogenesis and implications for the oblique subduction of the paleo-Pacific plate

“…Indeed, an analysis of Jurassic-Cretaceous granitoid distribution in space and time in the eastern continental China by Niu et al (2015) echoes the active continental margin associated with the paleo-Pacific subduction (though not an Andean-Type), but emphasizes the magmatic termination at ~ 90 Ma to have resulted from the paleo-Pacific re-orientation from NW to NNW, making the eastern margin of the Chinese continental shelf in transform contact with the NNW moving paleo-Pacific plate. While this hypothesis is logical and can effectively explain the magmatic termination as the result of the trench jam and accretion of Chinese continental shelf basement.…”

“…It is generally considered that the Mesozoic granitoid magmatism in the eastern continental Asia was associated with the paleo-Pacific plate subduction and the spatial-temporal distribution of the granitoids has thus been used to discuss the tectonic evolution of the paleo-Pacific plate (Niu et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2013). It is thus necessary to reconstruct the late Mesozoic-early Cenozoic tectonics of the eastern Asian continental margin.…”

“…On the basis of the data presented here together with the logical analysis following the work by Niu et al (2015) and geological data in the literature, we have recently offered explicitly a testable hypothesis with illustrations on the origin of the Yellow Sea, i.e., "The Yellow Sea is a continent-rifted basin with buried basaltic seafloor basement although the said seafloor spreading must have ceased for some time." (Niu and Tang, 2016).…”

Testing the geologically testable hypothesis on subduction initiation

“…The western Pacific trench-arc-backarc-shelf systems developed and evolved since the Mesozoic offer opportunities for discovering solutions to many geological problems and puzzling observations [12,13], including testing the hypothesis in question here. We should choose geologically better studied trenches with less sediments to dredge rocks exposed on the overlying forearc trench slopes like those in the Izu-Bonin-Mariana trench [14] and Tonga-Kermadec trench [15] (Figs 2a-d).…”