A detrital record of continent-continent collision in the Early-Middle Jurassic foreland sequence in the northern Yangtze foreland basin, South China

Abstract

The Mesozoic northern Yangtze foreland basin system was formed by continental collision between the North China and South China plates along the Mianlue suture. Synorogenic stratigraphic sequences of Late Triassic to Early-Middle Jurassic age were developed in the northern Yangtze foreland basin. The upper Middle Jurassic Shaximiao Formation consists mainly of thick-bedded terrestrial successions that serve as the main body of the basin-filling sequences, suggesting intense tectonism in the peripheral orogeny of the foreland basin. Laser-ICP-MS U-Pb analysis of 254 detrital zircon grains from sandstone samples and several published Lower-Middle Jurassic samples, detrital compositions, petrofacies, and paleocurrent reconstructions in the northern Yangtze foreland basin indicate that discrete source areas included the Qinling-Dabieshan ranges and the Mianlue suture zone to the north, and the South China plate to the south. The stratigraphic succession and sediment provenance of the foreland basin imply that the early Mianlue oceanic basin, magmatic arc, and nonmarine molasse foreland basin during the period of deposition were modified or buried by the subsequent continent-continent collision between the North China-Qinling-Dabieshan plate and the Yangtze plate during the Jurassic, which followed the oblique amalgamation between these plates during the Middle-Late Triassic.