Japan Sea, opening history and mechanism: A synthesis

Abstract

Abstract. The respective tectonic effects of back arc spreading and continental collision in Asia are considered either as two independent processes or as closely interrelated. Extrusion tectonics assumes that the opening of the South China Sea and the left-lateral motion along the Red River fault are geometrically linked in a pull-apart manner. This model is not accepted by several workers because the structural link between the two processes is not clearly demonstrated. In the case of the Japan Sea,, we can show without ambiguity that back arc opening was controlled by large intracontinental strike-slip faults which can be easily understood as effects of the India-Asia collision far from the indenter. The Japan Sea opened in the early Miocene in a broad pull-apart zone between two major dextral strike-slip shear zones.

Collisional model for rapid fore‐arc block rotations, arc curvature, and episodic back‐arc rifting in subduction settings

“…Lee et al [1999] also suggest that a wide zone of early to middle Miocene shortening between the Korean Peninsula and southwest Japan, near Tsushima Island is evidence for the existence of a rotational pivot point in southwest Japan associated with collision of an unidentified buoyant feature on the subducting Philippine Sea plate. Alternatively, some workers have suggested that Sea of Japan opening occurred as a pull-apart basin, in a region of dextral shear [e.g., Jolivet et al, 1994], although we do not concur with this interpretation. …”

“…We find mantle-based triggers for back-arc initiation unconvincing as the sole cause for backarc episodicity, because we can demonstrate the spatial and temporal links between back-arc rifting and nearby collisional events for most back-arc rifts worldwide ( Figure 5 and Table 1). In addition, previous numerical modeling studies show that spatial variations in incoming plate buoyancy will produce marked temporal variations in trench migration rates, producing episodic opening and closing of back-arc regions [Royden and Husson, 2006] invokes an along-strike variation in the age and thickness of oceanic crust, or the presence of a slab edge, to influence the degree of seaward retreat of the subducted plate relative to the upper plate that will, in turn, generate localized curvature of the arc; (4) extrusion (or tectonic escape) model involves collision perpendicular to the arc, which causes much of the arc to be ''extruded'' laterally away from the collision point, in a direction parallel to the strike of the arc [e.g., McKenzie, 1972;Molnar and Tapponnier, 1975;Burke and Sengör, 1986;Jolivet et al, 1990Jolivet et al, , 1994; and (5) Hsui and Youngquist [1985] have suggested that flow of the crust (with a Newtonian or non-Newtonian viscous rheology) past two stationary ''pinning points'' (e.g., buoyant indentors) can generate curved orogens/subduction boundaries.…”

Major, trace element, and Nd, Sr and Pb isotope studies of Cenozoic basalts in SE China: mantle sources, regional variations, and tectonic significance

“…Right-and left-lateral displacements in some of these faults, however, are controversial [Jolivet et al, 1994;Gilder et al, 1999;Zhang et al, 2003;Utkin, 2013]. It is not clear whether these faults affected the lithospheric magma sources.…”

Tectonic Process of the Sedimentary Basin Formation and Evolution in the Late Cenozoic Arc-Arc Collision Zone, Central Japan

“…The tectonic domain of the sea floor spreading in the Japan Sea area had moved from the widened Japan Basin area to the southwest, and formed both Yamato Basin and Tsushima Basin by crustal expansion, but it ceased in 18 million years ago [39][40][41][42]. The rifted structures with trends of north-south direction or northwest-southeast were formed in Toyama Trough and the Hokuriku and Niigata areas in the period from the end of Oligocene to the early Miocene [43][44][45].…”