Abstract
New paleomagnetic data have been obtained from Early to earliest Middle Miocene volcanic rocks in the Ryozen area, located in the northern part of the Abukuma Mountains in Northeast Japan. Our data show that the mountains have been rotated about 40° counterclockwise with respect to the Asian continent between 20 and 16 Ma. This rotation occurred synchronously with rifting of the lithosphere in Northeast Japan, which implies that the back-arc opening of the Japan Sea was the cause of this rotation. Combined with previously obtained paleomagnetic results from adjacent areas, a counterclockwise rotation of approximately 40° in the southern part of Northeast Japan is suggested to have occurred between 20 and 18 Ma. This result implies that a diachronism exists between the clockwise rotation of Southwest Japan (15 Ma) and the counterclockwise rotation of Northeast Japan (20–18 Ma).
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