New evidence from heavy minerals and detrital zircons in Quaternary fluvial sediments for the evolution of the upper Yangtze River, South China

Abstract

In the Three Gorges and adjacent areas, there are three planation surfaces and five terraces along the Yangtze River that record the evolution history of the river system. Here, we used diagnostic heavy minerals, U-Pb geochronology, and trace elements of detrital zircons from one planation surface, two terraces, and a modern point bar to reconstruct the evolution history of the upper Yangtze River, specifically the Chuan River in the Sichuan Basin. The sediments in the lowest planation surface had different felsic source rocks derived from east of the Three Gorges, which indicated that before the disintegration of the lowest planation surface (0.75 Ma), there were two paleorivers: the westward-flowing paleo-Chuan River and eastward-flowing paleo-Yangtze River separated by the Huangling Dome. At 0.75–0.73 Ma, the dominant detrital zircons from the Sichuan Basin in the sediments of terrace T5 (the highest terrace) confirmed that the paleo-Yangtze River cut through the Three Gorges and captured the paleo-Chuan River, and the Daliang Mountains became the new drainage divide. Finally, the appearance of materials from the upper Jinsha River in terrace T2 indicated that the paleo-Yangtze River progressively captured the paleo-Jinsha River, and the modern upper Yangtze River formed before 0.05 Ma. These river capture events of the upper Yangtze River confirmed the Quaternary uplift of the SE Tibetan Plateau.

Control of Structural Landform Evolution on Karst Groundwater Cycle in a Large‐Scale Anticlinorium

“…Both shallow and deep hydraulic connections of karst aquifers increased as the river erosion rates reached their peak. After the Middle Pleistocene, the Yangtze River was connected from east to west (Huang et al 2022), and karst groundwater and surface water systems were discharged into the lowest regional datum level of the Nan River with the influence of headward erosion. Eventually, water flowed into the Han River within a tributary of the Yangtze River.…”