Revisiting Early–Middle Jurassic igneous activity in the Nanling Mountains, South China: Geochemistry and implications for regional geodynamics

Abstract

Early–Middle Jurassic igneous rocks (190–170Ma) are distributed in an E–W-trending band within the Nanling Tectonic Belt, and have a wide range of compositions but are only present in limited volumes. This scenario contrasts with the uniform but voluminous Middle–Late Jurassic igneous rocks (165–150Ma) in this area. The Early–Middle Jurassic rocks include oceanic-island basalt (OIB)-type alkali basalts, tholeiitic basalts and gabbros, bimodal volcanic rocks, syenites, A-type granites, and high-K calc–alkaline granodiorites. Geochemical and isotopic data indicate that alkaline and tholeiitic basalts and syenites were derived from melting of the asthenospheric mantle, with asthenosphere-derived magmas mixing with variable amounts of magmas derived from melting of metasomatized lithospheric mantle. In comparison, A-type granites in the study area were probably generated by shallow dehydration-related melting of hornblende-bearing continental crustal rocks that were heated by contemporaneous intrusion of mantle-derived basaltic magmas, and high-K calc-alkaline granodiorites resulted from the interaction between melts from upwelling asthenospheric mantle and the lower crust. The Early–Middle Jurassic magmatic event is spatially variable in terms of lithology, geochemistry, and isotopic systematics. This indicates that the deep mantle sources of the magmas that formed these igneous rocks were significantly heterogeneous, and magmatism had a gradual decrease in the involvement of the asthenospheric mantle from west to east. These variations in composition and sourcing of magmas, in addition to the spatial distribution and the thermal structure of the crust–mantle boundary during this magmatic event, indicates that these igneous rocks formed during a period of rifting after the Indosinian Orogeny rather than during subduction of the paleo-Pacific oceanic crust.