Abstract
The Cenozoic sediments in marginal basins of East Asia ultimately reflected coupling between the tectonics, landscape evolution, and drainage reorganization. Recently, the provenance of Miocene sediments in the East China Sea Basin (ECSB) and Taiwan has been in hot debate, and several models were proposed to interpret the provenance changes. Most of them are related to river reorganization in East Asia and highly relied on detrital zircon U-Pb dating. In this study, a large number of detrital zircon U-Pb ages of Miocene sediments from the ECSB, Taiwan region, and the potential source areas have been compiled for quantitative provenance analysis. The results suggested that all the early–middle Miocene sediments in Taiwan and the ECSB were closely linked to North China and the Korean Peninsula. Over 80% sediments in Taiwan were delivered from the ECSB whose sediments were predominantly contributed by North China and the Korean Peninsula (70%). However, for the late Miocene to Quaternary sediments in the ECSB, the contribution of the Yangtze River system was 72%, which indicates distinct reorganization of river networks and initial formation of the Yangtze River in the late Miocene. The quantitative provenance analysis together with southward environmental changes from dominantly fluvial sediments in the northern and middle ECSB to shallow marine sediments in Taiwan region suggested that the early–middle Miocene sediments of Taiwan were mainly sourced from the North China and the Korean Peninsula by passing the ECSB. Thus, these sediments in Taiwan region would experience the river–delta–shallow marine route from the ECSB to Taiwan region.
Highlights
The Cenozoic East Asia has experienced great tectonic movement, especially the uplift of Tibetan Plateau by India–Asia collision and the subsidence of East Asia margin associated with evolving of numerous rift basins, followed by contrasting topography and climatic changes and reorganization of continental river networks (Wang, 2004; Zheng, 2015) (Figure 1)
A sharp provenance change was recognized at the Miocene Provenance Changes in Taiwan beginning of the Miocene in the Taiwan region that the provenance of western foothills of Taiwan changed from the adjacent South China to new source areas characterized by an obvious increase in old zircon ages (Lan et al, 2014; Deng et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2017; Chen et al, 2019)
The kernel density estimates (KDE) using a 20 Ma bandwidth show that a sharp provenance change occurred in Miocene in
Summary
The Cenozoic East Asia has experienced great tectonic movement, especially the uplift of Tibetan Plateau by India–Asia collision and the subsidence of East Asia margin associated with evolving of numerous rift basins, followed by contrasting topography and climatic changes and reorganization of continental river networks (Wang, 2004; Zheng, 2015) (Figure 1). The provenance of Miocene sediments of the East China Sea Basin (ECSB) and Taiwan has attracted great interest and been in hot debate. Zhang et al (2017) proposed that this provenance change was caused by the establishment of the Yangtze River, and Deng et al (2017) suggested the North China Craton (NCC) supplied detritus. In contrast to these large-scale drainage reorganization models, most recently, Chen et al (2019) suggested that an unknown macroblock that collided with the Asian margin and covered by thick sediments resulted in this change.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call