Physicochemical processes involved in Cenozoic volcanism in eastern China

Abstract

Eastern China is a Cenozoic composite volcanic rock province, where volcanic rocks of the tholeiite series, calc-alkali series, Hy-norm-bearing olivine basalt series, Na-alkali series and K-alkali series coexist. Eastern China is separated into the northern and southern volcanic rock regions by the Changzhou-Yueyang old deep fault. Magma generation and magmatic activities in the northern region were controlled by the mantle uplift and old deep faults. These old deep faults were revived and some of them were changed into a multiple rift system due to back-arc expansion. The Bohai Sea depression is situated at the intersection of the Lujiang-Tancheng-Shenyang-Mishan and Zhangjiakou-Tianjin uplift belts of the upper mantle. Eogene (71.5-28.5 Ma) tholeiites largely occur in the central part of the mantle uplift; the well developed Neogene (23.8-2.6 Ma) alkali olivine basalts are distributed in the outer lane of the former and the Quaternary (1.48 Ma-recent) peralkali volcanic rocks are far away from them. In the southern region magma generation and magmatic activities were controlled mainly by plate subduction and three sets of old deep faults. Studies of incompatible elements and REE show that the degree of enrichment of incompatible elements and LREE increases with decreasing age, increasing source depth and decreasing degree of partial melting of the upper mantle. This presumably is an indication of a rapid uplifting and then waning magmatic hearth with gradually decreasing temperature, accompanied with down-cutting of the lithospheric faults. We call such a process “a reverse process of magma generation”. And the opposite process of the magmatic evolution of the East African rift in Kenya can be called “a positive process of magma generation”.