Tectono-sedimentary evolution of the Mesoproterozoic basins in the southern Yan-Liao and Mianchi-Queshan areas: insights from stratigraphic pattern and detrital zircon geochronology

Abstract

The widespread Mesoproterozoic successions around the world have recorded the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Columbia. In the North China Craton (NCC), the Mesoproterozoic basins in the Yan-Liao and southern NCC are the important evidence to study the nature and evolution of the Mesoproterozoic basins. In this study, we scrutinized the stratigraphic pattern and detrital zircon U–Pb geochronology in the southern Yan-Liao and Mianchi-Queshan areas in the southern NCC, to investigate the evolutionary relationship between the Mesoproterozoic basins in the north and south of NCC. Detrital zircons from the Mesoproterozoic sequence in the southern Yan-Liao areas showed monotonous source with age peak at ca. 2500 Ma, corresponding well with the ages of the Neoarchean complex in the central NCC. However, the Mesoproterozoic sequence in the Mianchi-Queshan areas, which is represented by the Ruyang Group, exhibited significantly different characteristics with influx of much younger zircons. The southern Yan-Liao and Mianchi-Queshan areas showed distinct similarity in the stratigraphic pattern, reflected by the Mesoproterozoic successions in these two areas being both bracketed by two sequence boundaries and further divided into two sequences under a uniform sea-level change. The Mesoproterozoic strata in these two areas probably possessed a correlative relationship in the stratigraphic patterns and basin evolutionary history.