Origin and tectonic significance of the Huangling massif within the Yangtze craton, South China

Abstract

As the oldest exposed basement and the typical sedimentary cover of the Yangtze craton, the Huangling massif is a suitable place to decipher the tectonics of South China block. Structural analysis shows that the Huangling massif has an elliptic domal shape with N-S striking long axis, an asymmetric antiform with a steep western flank and a gentle eastern flank. There, three litho-tectonic units are recognized, from inner to outer parts: (1) ArcheanPaleoproterozoic metamorphic rocks intruded by Neoproterozoic granitoids; (2) Neoproterozoic to Jurassic sedimentary envelope around the dome core; (3) Cretaceous terrigeneous alluvial-fluvial deposits, unconformably overlying the dome flanks. Coeval with the uplifting of the massif, the pre-Cretaceous strata on the western and eastern flanks of the Huangling massif were involved in a series of folds with nearly N-S axes and layer-parallel slip structures with top-to-the-W and top-to-the-E motion, respectively. The subsequent brittle normal faulting controlled the deposition of the graben or half-graben basins on both flanks. Cooling history reveals that the Huangling massif underwent uplifting between 160 Ma and 110 Ma with an average cooling rate of 2-3 °C/Ma. Moreover, the Huangling area was not significantly affected by the Early Paleozoic and Triassic orogenies of South China. Comparable with the contemporaneous extensional structures, such as metamorphic core complexs, syntectonic plutons bounded by ductile normal faults, and rift-related basins in eastern China, it is proposed that the Huangling massif, might be an extensional structure controlled by a weak crustal extension. In this case, it will represent the western front of the Late Mesozoic lithospheric thinning in entire eastern China. However the compressional model cannot be ruled out.

Cretaceous Episodic Extension in the South China Block, East Asia: Evidence From the Yuechengling Massif of Central South China

“…However, minor Late Cretaceous cooling ages correspond to later uplifting or thermal perturbation and can thus be linked with the Late Cretaceous extension (D 2 event; Webb et al, ; Ratschbacher et al, ; Ji, Lin, Faure, Shi, et al, ). At the northern margin of the SCB, the early extension seems to have a more widespread impact, because these extensional/magmatic domes, including the Huangling Massif (HL), Qingyang‐Jiuhua plutons (QY‐JH), and Hongzheng MCC (HZ), were formed during Early Cretaceous without later cooling ages (Ji et al, ; Wei, Martelet et al, ; Wei, Chen, et al, ; Zhu, Xie, et al, ).…”

“…Changle‐Nan'ao (Wei et al, ); 8. Huangling‐HL (Ji et al, ); 9. Tongbaishan‐TBS (Cui et al, ; Webb et al, ; Xu & Wang, ); 10.…”

“…To better recover the general history of extension in the SCB, the knowledge of timing, kinematics, exhumation amount and rate, and spatial variation is critical. However, compared with the well‐constrained tectonic evolution of the MCCs in the NCB (Lin et al, ; Lin, Faure, et al, ; Liu et al, ; Wang et al, ; Zhu et al, ), not only variable kinematics has been demonstrated in different MCCs/domes of the SCB (e.g., Faure et al, ; Lin et al, ; Zhu, Xie, et al, ; Li et al, ; Wei et al, ; Ji, Faure, et al, ), but the temporal‐spatial distribution of extensional structures also provides a more complex story that contains episodic deformation with ill‐defined boundaries of this extensional province (Ji et al, ; Figure ). Notwithstanding the complication of the Late Mesozoic tectonics in the SCB, more pieces of evidence are accumulated with the timing, amount, and geodynamic setting of extension than were known before.…”

Multiple Emplacement and Exhumation History of the Late Mesozoic Dayunshan–Mufushan Batholith in Southeast China and Its Tectonic Significance: 1. Structural Analysis and Geochronological Constraints

“…As depicted in Figure , so far only a few extensional massifs (mainly magmatic domes or syntectonic plutons bounded by ductile normal faults) have been documented in hinterland of the SCB, such as the Wugongshan (Faure et al, ), Lushan (Lin et al, ; Q. B. Zhu, Yang, & Wang, ), Hongzhen (G. Zhu et al, ), Hengshan (Li, Zhang, Dong, Su, et al, ; Li et al, ; Wei et al, ), and Huangling (Ji et al, ). Although these case studies provide significant information on the Late Mesozoic extensional tectonics in South China, some critical issues are still not settled: (1) structural style, especially kinematics of the continental extension; and (2) onset and duration of the extensional tectonic regime.…”

Continental dynamics of Eastern China: Insights from tectonic history and receiver function analysis

“…The evolutionary history of the SCC is critical for the understanding of the assembly and break-up of the supercontinents Rodinia and Gondwana Rino et al, 2008;Cawood et al, 2013;Yin et al, 2013) and is also important in evaluating the geological framework of the Eurasian continent (Ji et al, 2014). The SCC is composed of the Yangtze and the Cathaysia Blocks that amalgamated along the Shaoxing-JiangshanPingxiang fault (Mao et al, 1999;Mou and Xu, 2010;Wong et al, 2011; also known as the Jiangnan orogen; Zhao, 2014 and references therein) during early Neoproterozoic.…”