Study on Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic exhumation of the Yanji area, NE China: insights from low-temperature thermochronology

Abstract

The Yanji area, northeastern China, a part of the orogenic collage between the North China Block in the south and the Jiamusi-Khanka Massifs in the northeast, is the most likely location where the Pacific Plate subduction-related magmatic activities and subsequent exhumation processes occurred. Here, we report new low-temperature thermochronology of apatite and zircon data from the granitoid samples in the Yanji area. The exhumation rates of Tianfozhishan, Yanji area, were ~ 0.049 and ~ 0.073 mm/year, interpreted from the elevations and apatite and zircon fission track ages, respectively. The exhumation, integrated with the geological setting, suggested that the paleogeothermal gradient of the Tianfozhishan, even extending to the Yanji area, was possibly to be greater than 35 °C/km in the Late Cretaceous. The thermal history modeling of the data indicates a basically similar pattern, but the various timing for different samples between the Oligocene-Early Miocene and the Middle Miocene in the Yanji area. We hence conclude that a four-stages of cooling, from ~ 6.7 °C/Ma (during the Late Cretaceous), to ~ 0.8 °C/Ma (during the Late Cretaceous to the Oligocene-Early Miocene), then to ~ 2–3 °C/Ma with varied styles (between the Oligocene-Early Miocene and the Middle Miocene), and finally to 3 km under a reasonable paleogeothermal gradient (> 35 °C/km), speculated from the possible exhumation rate of Tianfozhishan. Combined with the tectonic setting, this exhumation, including two stages of pronounced tectonic uplift and denudation and two stages of weak exhumation driven by the low regional erosion rate, is possibly related to the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate since the Late Cretaceous. This study used more robust evidence to propose higher paleogeothermal gradient (> 35 °C/km), reflecting exhumation of > 3 km in the Yanji area since the Late Cretaceous.