Eastern North China Craton–North Australia Craton connection at 1.0 Ga through detrital zircon mixing modelling

Abstract

AbstractIn the ca. 1.0 Ga paleogeographic reconstruction, the North China Craton (NCC) is placed near Siberia, Laurentia, the Northern Australia Craton (NAUS), Baltica or India. To distinguish among these possibilities, we present inverse Monte Carlo modelling of the Xihe Group from the eastern NCC (ENCC), which is dominated by Grenvillian orogeny‐related detrital zircon age peaks, and of potential provenances (including NAUS, Siberia, Laurentia, India and the North Atlantic region). The result reveals that the ENCC–NAUS connection model yields the best mean cross‐correlation coefficient (R2 = ~0.92), which is also supported by the similarity in median εHf values between the Qiaotou Formation (Xihe Group) and the Jamison sandstones from the NAUS. The NCC–NAUS connection possibly records the breakup of Nuna and the assembly of Rodinia.