Possible Palaeozoic drift of SE Asia and Triassic collision with China

Abstract

The Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic rocks of the Thai–Malay Peninsula provide evidence of having had a subduction zone to the E and, in the Lower Palaeozoic, a cratonic sediment source to the W. Earlier attempts to explain that palaeogeography in plate tectonic terms involved or implied a northward drift from Gondwanaland and collision with mainland Asia in the Tertiary. That timing of events is unsatisfactory in several respects. Instead it is suggested that separation from Gondwanaland took place in mid-Palaeozoic times and that collision took place in the late Triassic. This fits closely the model put forward by Sengör for the western part of the Tethyan belt.