Turkic-Type Orogeny and Its Role in the Making of the Continental Crust

Abstract

Dedicated with gratitude, respect, and affection to Warren Bell Hamilton on the occasion of his retirement from active service to the United States Geological Survey and in recognition of his remarkable pioneering work on the tectonics of the Altaids, on which the research reported here is firmly based.

The odyssey of the Cache Creek terrane, Canadian Cordillera: Implications for accretionary orogens, tectonic setting of Panthalassa, the Pacific superwell, and break-up of Pangea

“…Accretionary orogens are commonly interpreted to develop through the incremental addition of terranes above a convergent plate boundary developed along the margin of a continent [1]. If, however, we accept the faunal evidence of a Tethyan origin for the Cache Creek seamounts, then the concept of the Canadian Cordillera as an accretionary orogen that progressively developed during Devonian to Jurassic subduction beneath North America, as recorded by the Stikinia-Quesnellia arc, is untenable.…”

“…Such orogens host the bulk of the Earth's orogenic gold and volcanogenic massive sulphides deposits, are stitched together and onlapped by post-tectonic granitoid intrusions and sedimentary basins, respectively, and are commonly inferred to be the sites of construction of continental lithosphere [1,2]. Establishing the processes responsible for the development and evolution of accretionary orogens, and quantifying the rate of continental growth within such orogens remains, therefore, of significant tectonic and economic interest.…”

Late Paleozoic low-angle southward-dipping thrust in the Züünharaa area, Mongolia: tectonic implications for the geological structures in the Sayan-Baikal and Hangai-Daur belts

“…The Altaid Collage (e.g., Sengör et al 1993;Sengör and Natal'in 1996) or the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB; e.g., Janh et al 2000;Xiao et al 2003;Windley et al 2007) is one of the largest Paleo-Mesozoic orogenic belts in the world (Fig. 1a).…”

“…Various tectonic models for formation of the CAOB were presented. For instance, three major ideas are: (1) the continuous subduction-accretion of oceanic material along a long-lasting arc (Sengör et al 1993;Sengör and Natal'in 1996); (2) the reworked collision of continental fragments rifted from the Abstract The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) is key to understanding the Paleozoic-Mesozoic geodynamics of Eurasian continent. The geological structure of the Middle-to-Late Paleozoic rock units in the North Mongolia-West Transbaikal region is critical in revealing development process of CAOB.…”

Geochronology and geochemistry of the high Mg dioritic dikes in Eastern Tianshan, NW China: Geochemical features, petrogenesis and tectonic implications

“…The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), also known as the Altaid orogenic collage (Sengör and Natal'In, 1996), the Central Asian Orogenic Super collage (Windley et al, 2007;Yakubchuk, 2004) and the great Central Asian Orogenic Belt (Jahn, 2004;Jahn et al, 2000a,b,c), extends from the Uralides in the west to the Pacific margin in the east, including orogenic areas in Russia (Altai-Sayan, Transbaikalia, Primorje), East Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, China, and Mongolia ( Fig. 1a; Safonova et al, 2011).…”