Have the Japanese Islands Grown?: Five "Japan"s Were Born, and Four "Japan"s Subducted into the Mantle

Abstract

The Japanese Islands have long been considered to be the most evolved of all the island arcs in the oceans. A simple scenario has been implicitly accepted for the growth of the Japanese Islands: since subduction started sometime around 520 Ma, the TTG crust has increased over time in association with the steady-state growth of the accretionary prism in front. Here, we show very different dynamic growths of TTG crusts over time than previously thought, i.e., four times more TTG crusts than at present must have gone into the deep mantle due to tectonic erosion, which occurred six times since subduction was initiated at 520 Ma. Tectonic erosion is a major process that has controlled the development history of the Japanese islands. It can be traced as a serpentinite mélange belt, which indicates the upper boundary of past extensive tectonic erosion.

Recognition of the Shimanto HP metamorphic belt within the traditional Sanbagawa HP metamorphic belt: New perspectives of the Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonics in Japan

“…Recent age spectrum analyses of detrital zircons from the Paleozoic to Cenozoic sandstones and psammitic schists in Japan have shown that major tectonic erosion has occurred at least four times during the 500 Ma history of the Japanese Islands (Isozaki et al, 2010a(Isozaki et al, , 2011Nakama et al, 2010;Suzuki et al, 2010). In this regard, it is noteworthy that one of such tectonic erosion episodes occurred just between the Ryoke-Sanyo and San-in batholith emplacements.…”

“…10) without any contradiction in the overall tectonic scenario. For further discussion of the tectonic erosion recognized in the Phanerozoic Japan, refer to Isozaki et al (2010a and Suzuki et al (2010).…”

Mid-Paleozoic arc granitoids in SW Japan with Neoproterozoic xenocrysts from South China: New zircon U–Pb ages by LA-ICP-MS

“…Suyehiro et al, 1996). As already discussed by Isozaki et al (2010) and Suzuki et al (2010) for the Paleozoic-Mesozoic Japan, multiple major arc batholith belts were formed in Japan, but except for the Cretaceous-Paleogene case, all have already disappeared. The most promising candidate for removing these units from the Earth's surface is large-scale tectonic erosion in subduction zone (e.g.…”

Cambrian plutonism in Northeast Japan and its significance for the earliest arc-trench system of proto-Japan: New U–Pb zircon ages of the oldest granitoids in the Kitakami and Ou Mountains

“…As preliminarily speculated by Isozaki et al (2010) and Suzuki et al (2010), the Paleozoic granitoids in SW Japan (e.g., Fujii et al, 2008;Osanai et al, 2014;Aoki et al, 2015) likely shared a similar fate, i.e. the mature arc plutons were totally removed and disappeared by tectonic erosion.…”

“…To explain the disappearance of such a large Paleozoic arc pluton, the process of tectonic erosion is the most promising (Isozaki et al, 2010;Suzuki et al, 2010). Tectonic erosion or subduction erosion is a process occurring in many modern active continental margins, which can remove a significant amount of crustal material from the bottom of a fore-arc (e.g., Scholl et al, 1980;Scholl, 1991, 1993;Scholl and von Huene, 2010).…”