An unrecognized major collision of the …home.ustc.edu.cn/~fiatlux/Papers/Week201.pdfplate reorganizationof the PacificOcean inthis period has still remained uncertain. The prevailing

Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Earth-Science Reviews

j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate /earsc i rev

Anunrecognizedmajor collision of the Okhotomorsk Blockwith East Asiaduring the Late Cretaceous, constraints on the plate reorganization ofthe Northwest Pacific

Yong-Tai Yang ⁎CAS Key Laboratory of Crust–Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

⁎ Tel.: +86 0551 63607193.E-mail address: [email protected].

0012-8252/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.07.010

a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 28 February 2013Accepted 30 July 2013Available online 8 August 2013

Keywords:Continental collisionContinental transform boundaryEast AsiaNorthwest PacificOkhotomorsk BlockLate Cretaceous

Interactions at plate boundaries induce stresses that constitute critical controls on the structural evolution ofintraplate regions. However, the traditional tectonicmodel for the East Asianmargin during theMesozoic, invokingsuccessive episodes of paleo-Pacific oceanic subduction, does not provide an adequate context for important LateCretaceous dynamics across East Asia, including: continental-scale orogenic processes, significant sinistral strike-slip faulting, and several others. The integration of numerous documented field relations requires a new tectonicmodel, as proposed here. The Okhotomorsk continental block, currently residing below the Okhotsk Sea inNortheast Asia, was located in the interior of the Izanagi Plate before the Late Cretaceous. It moved northwest-ward with the Izanagi Plate and collided with the South China Block at about 100 Ma. The indentation of theOkhotomorsk Block within East Asia resulted in the formation of a sinistral strike-slip fault system in South China,formation of a dextral strike-slip fault system in North China, and regional northwest–southeast shortening andorogenic uplift in East Asia. Northeast-striking mountain belts over 500 km wide extended from SoutheastChina to Southwest Japan and South Korea. The peak metamorphism at about 89 Ma of the Sanbagawa high-pressure metamorphic belt in Southwest Japan was probably related to the continental subduction of theOkhotomorsk Block beneath the East Asian margin. Subsequently, the north-northwestward change of motiondirection of the Izanagi Plate led to the northward movement of the Okhotomorsk Block along the East Asianmargin, forming a significant sinistral continental transform boundary similar to the San Andreas fault systemin California. Sanbagawa metamorphic rocks in Southwest Japan were rapidly exhumed through the several-kilometer wide ductile shear zone at the lower crust and upper mantle level. Accretionary complexes successivelyaccumulated along the East Asian margin during the Jurassic–Early Cretaceous were subdivided into narrow andsubparallel belts by the upper crustal strike-slip fault system. The departure of the Okhotomorsk Block from thenortheast-striking Asian margin resulted in the occurrence of an extensional setting and formation of a widemagmatic belt to the west of the margin. In the Campanian, the block collided with the Siberian margin, inNortheast Asia. At about 77 Ma, a new oceanic subduction occurred to the south of the Okhotomorsk Block,ending its long-distance northward motion. Based on the new tectonic model, the abundant Late Archean toEarly Proterozoic detrital zircons in the Cretaceous sandstones in Kamchatka, Southwest Japan, and Taiwan areinterpreted to have been sourced from the Okhotomorsk Block basement which possibly formed during theLate Archean and Early Proterozoic. The new model suggests a rapidly northward-moving Okhotomorsk Blockat an average speed of 22.5 cm/yr during 89–77 Ma. It is hypothesized that the Okhotomorsk–East Asia collisionduring 100–89 Ma slowed down the northwestwardmotion of the Izanagi Plate, while slab pull forces producedfrom the subducting Izanagi Plate beneath the Siberian margin redirected the plate from northwestward tonorth-northwestward motion at about 90–89 Ma.

© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 972. Geological setting of the Okhotomorsk Block and Japan Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983. The new tectonic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

3.1. The collision of the Okhotomorsk Block with the East Asian margin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1033.2. Strike-slip motion of the Okhotomorsk Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

ghts reserved.

97Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

3.2.1. The sinistral transform fault zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053.2.2. Effects in a much broader region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063.2.3. Extension and magmatism following the transpressional regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

3.3. The collision of the Okhotomorsk Block with the Siberian margin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1084. Evidences of Archean and Early Proterozoic zircons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

4.1. U–Pb dating of detrital zircons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1084.2. New interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

5. Evolution of the Sanbagawa HP metamorphic belt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1096. Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

6.1. The Okhotomorsk Block before the Late Cretaceous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106.2. Constraints on the plate reorganization of the Northwest Pacific during the CNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106.3. The Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision and the Early Cretaceous and Cenozoic extensional events in East China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

7. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

1. Introduction

Reconstructing tectonic processes operating along the East Asianmargin (Figs. 1 and 2) during the Cretaceous is important for under-standing the geologic evolution of East Asia, especially in extensiveintraplate regions, and for constraining plate reconstructions of thepaleo-Pacific Ocean (Engebretson et al., 1985; Lithgow-Bertelloni andRichards, 1998; Smith, 2003; Norton, 2007; Seton et al., 2012), particu-larly during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron (CNS) (125–84 Ma), atime of no magnetic reversals. It is generally accepted that the EastAsian margin has experienced successive oceanic subduction withoccasional oceanic ridge collision since the Paleozoic (Isozaki, 1996;Maruyama et al., 1997; Isozaki et al., 2010). However, a series of geolog-ical events occurred in East Asia during the early Late Cretaceous arepoorly explained by this successive oceanic subduction model.

Many thermochronologic, structural, and stratigraphic studies haveindicated that a continental-scale NW–SE shortening event occurredin East Asia during the early Late Cretaceous (Charvet et al., 1994;Lapierre et al., 1997; Ratschbacher et al., 2003), which was intervenedbetween two widespread extensional episodes in the Early Cretaceous,and in the latest Cretaceous–Cenozoic, respectively (Watson et al.,1987; Ren et al., 2002). During this period, major mountains and basinswere rapidly uplifted and exhumed, including: the Nanling Mountains(NL) (Chen, 2000), Wuyi Mountains (WY) (Chen, 2000), YellowMountains (Y) (Zheng et al., 2011), Xuefeng Mountains (XF) (Yan et al.,2011), Sichuan Basin (SB) (Shen et al., 2009), Qinling–Dabie mountainbelts (QL and DB) (Grimmer et al., 2002; Ratschbacher et al., 2003;Enkelmann et al., 2006; Cui et al., 2012), Jiaolai Basin (JB) (Zhang et al.,2003), Luxi Uplift (LU) (Wang et al., 2008), Bohai Bay Basin (BBB)(Xu et al., 2001; Zhu et al., 2012), Taihang Mountains (TH) (Xu et al.,2001), Lüliang Mountains (LL) (Li and Song, 2010), Ordos Basin (OB)(Zhang et al., 2011), Yan–Yin mountain belts (YIN and YAN) (Wuand Wu, 2003a,b), Changbai Mountains (CB) (Li et al., 2010), SongliaoBasin (SLB) (Feng et al., 2010), and Great Xing'an Mountains (GX) (Liet al., 2011) in China; East Gobi Basin (EGB) in Mongolia (Grahamet al., 2001; Johnson, 2004); Sikhote-Alin Fold Belt (SAFB) in Russia(Zonenshain et al., 1990) and Sanjiang-Middle Amur Basin (SMAB) inthe China–Russia border region (Kirillova, 2003); Gyeongsang (GB)and other basins in South Korea (Choi and Lee, 2011); and Ryokemeta-morphic belt in Japan (Kamp and Takemura, 1993; Okudaira et al.,2001), etc. (Figs. 1–3). Furthermore, the uplift of northeast-strikingmountain ranges in East Asia appears to have blocked moist ocean airinto the interior of the continent, resulting in the deposition of red clas-tic sediments and eolian sands in China and Mongolia during the LateCretaceous (Chen, 2000; Hasegawa et al., 2009; Ma et al., 2009).

The East Asian margin was characterized by large-scale sinistralstrike-slipmovements during the early Late Cretaceous.Major examplesinclude the Lishui Fault (LF) (Chen, 2000), Changle-Nanao Fault (CNF)(Charvet et al., 1994), Tanlu Fault (TLF) (Zhang et al., 2003), Median

Tectonic Line (MTL) (Taira et al., 1983; Takagi, 1986; Otsuki, 1992),Tanakura Tectonic Line (TTL) (Taira et al., 1983; Otsuki, 1992), and Cen-tral Sikhote-Alin Fault (CSAF) (Zonenshain et al., 1990), etc. (Figs. 1 and2). Moreover, a series of small NE–SW trending pull apart basins devel-oped in Southeast China during the Late Cretaceous (Charvet et al.,1994; Lapierre et al., 1997; Ma et al., 2009). Structural studies indicatedthat Japan Islands (Taira et al., 1983; Kanaori, 1990; Otsuki, 1992) andSouth Korea (Hwang et al., 2008) are subdivided into many blocks bystrike-slip faults and the Late Cretaceous igneous rocks are mainly dis-tributed around these faults. However, the current oceanic subductionmodel is unable to reconcile these ubiquitous strike-slip features withthe subhorizontal internal structure of the crust in SW Japan, as imagedby seismic data (Ito et al., 2009) (Fig. 2c). Because of this, the ideaof strike-slip-fault-controlled tectonics in Japan (Taira et al., 1983;Kanaori, 1990; Otsuki, 1992) (Fig. 4) has been completely abandoned(Isozaki et al., 2010).

Other features unaccounted for in the traditional tectonic modelinclude: ubiquitous thrusting features, high metamorphic pressure andfast exhumationof Sanbagawahigh-pressuremetamorphic rocks, and cer-tain geochemical characteristics of granites in SW Japan (Fig. 2), whichare best explained by episodic collision and underthrusting of micro-continents (Charvet, 2013). Although various relatively small-scale conti-nental collisional events during the Late Jurassic–Cretaceous have beenproposed at the proto-Japan margin (Jolivet et al., 1988; Otsuki, 1992;Charvet, 2013) and at the SE China margin (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierreet al., 1997; Ratschbacher et al., 2003), they were possibly inadequate inscale to produce the aforementioned regional deformations or they werenot consistent with the deformation time of the early Late Cretaceous.

In addition, as the Izanagi and Kula plates in the paleo-PacificOcean have been wholly subducted and ages of the Pacific seafloorformed during the CNS are unable to be precisely defined, detailedplate reorganization of the Pacific Ocean in this period has still remaineduncertain. The prevailing model (Engebretson et al., 1985), on the basisof hotspots, magnetic anomalies, and fracture zones in the north PacificBasin, suggested that the Izanagi Plate moved north-northwestwardto northward relative to the Eurasian Plate at a speed of more than20 cm/yr between 135 and 85 Ma (Fig. 4). Smith (2003, 2007)suggested that the E–W oriented Izanagi–Pacific ridge was located justto the north of Australia during 130–100 Ma and rapidly moved north-ward to a location beside NE Asia between 100 and 84 Ma. Primarilyusing fracture zone and magnetic isochron data of the Pacific Basin,Norton (2007) proposed that a significant reorganization occurred atthe boundary between the Farallon and Izanagi plates at about 90 Ma,followed by a total change of about 35° from northwestward at about90 Ma to northward at 71 Ma in the direction of Pacific–Izanagi motion.The global plate dynamics model (Lithgow-Bertelloni and Richards,1998) also suggested a rapidly north-northwestward to northward-moving Izanagi Plate during the CNS. However, a recent global platemotion model (Seton et al., 2012) proposed that the Izanagi Plate

Fig. 1. Topographic and tectonicmap of East Asia, with an inset of the enlargedNanlingMountains at the lower right. Mountain belts, CB: Changbai Shan; DB: Dabie Shan; DL: Dalou Shan;GX: Great Xing'an Mountains; LL: Lüliang Shan; LU: Luxi Uplift; NL: Nanling Mountains; QL: Qinling Mountains; SAFB: Sikhote-Alin Fold Belt; TH: Taihang Shan; WY: Wuyi Shan;XF: Xuefeng Shan; Y: Yellow Shan; YAN: Yan Shan; YIN: Yin Shan. Basins, BBB: Bohai Bay Basin; EGB: East Gobi Basin; GB: Gyeongsang Basin; HB: Hengyang Basin; JB: Jiaolai Basin;JHB: Jianghan Basin; MB: Mayang Basin; OB: Ordos Basin; SB: Sichuan Basin; SLB: Songliao Basin; SMAB: Sanjiang-Middle Amur Basin; SYB: Subei-Yellow Sea Basin. Strike-slip faults,CNF: Changle-Nanao Fault; CSAF: Central Sikhote-Alin Fault; LF: Lishui Fault; MTL: Median Tectonic Line; SF: Shangyi-Gubeikou-Pingquan Fault; SKTL: South Korean Tectonic Line; TF:Taiyingzhen-Lengkou-Shangying Fault; TLF: Tanlu Fault; TTL: Tanakura Tectonic Line; ZLF: Ziyun-Luodian Fault.

98 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

moved in a westward direction during the Cretaceous and the Izanagi–Pacific ridge intersected the East Asian margin in a sub-parallel ori-entation during the early Eocene. Onshore geological records, suchas orogenic uplift events, major faulting events, basin stratigraphy,metamorphism, and magmatism, probably provide important infor-mation for assessing how widespread plate motion changes wereduring the CNS (Matthews et al., 2012).

A new tectonic model is proposed here for the evolution of the EastAsian margin during the Late Cretaceous. This model links various,seemingly isolated, geologic events, explains many controversialgeologic problems in East Asia, and provides a much-needed contextfor plate reconstruction of the paleo-Pacific Ocean during the CNS.

2. Geological setting of the Okhotomorsk Block and Japan Islands

The Okhotomorsk Block (Parfenov and Natal'in, 1986; Şengör andNatal'in, 1996), also called the Okhotsk Block (Jolivet et al., 1988;Otsuki, 1992), has a continental crust of over 20 km in thickness

(Pavlenkova et al., 2009) and currently resides below the OkhotskSea (Fig. 1). Because there is another small continental block in theOkhotsk–Chukotka volcanic belt called the Okhotsk Massif or OkhotskTerrane (Zonenshain et al., 1990; Stone et al., 2003), the presentstudy follows Parfenov and Natal'in (1986) and uses the name ofOkhotomorsk Block for the continental block below the Okhotsk Sea.The consolidated basement of the Okhotomorsk Block is covered bythe Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic sediments 1–12 km thick and has notbeen encountered by drilling (Chekhovich et al., 2009). The SredinnyMassif in Kamchatka (Fig. 1) has been thought to be the easternpart of the block (Parfenov and Natal'in, 1986; Jolivet et al., 1988;Bindeman et al., 2002). As the high-grade metamorphosed massifcontains abundant Archean to Early Cretaceous detrital zircon coreswhich underwent the ubiquitous episode of 77 Ma overgrowth (Figs. 3and 5a), it was interpreted as a product of regional metamorphismand migmatization of a siliciclastic sedimentary protolith during theLate Cretaceous (Bindeman et al., 2002). The collisional event of theOkhotomorsk Block with the Siberian margin north of the Okhotsk Sea

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 2. (a) Basement geologic map of Japan Islands (modified from Taira et al., 1983; Isozaki, 1996; Taira, 2001; Isozaki et al., 2010; Wakita, 2013). (b) Detailed geologic map of Shikoku(after Taira et al., 1988; Aoki et al., 2011, 2012). (c) Cross section across SW Japan (after Ito et al., 2009).

99Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

occurred by the end of the Cretaceous, causing the cessation of magmaticactivity in the Okhotsk-Chukotka arc (Parfenov and Natal'in, 1986;Jolivet et al., 1988; Bindeman et al., 2002; Chekhovich et al., 2009)(Figs. 1 and 3). Seismic tomographic data (Bijwaard et al., 1998;Gorbatov et al., 2000) show a high-velocity zone dipping to the north-west to a depth of 660 km beneath the northern Sea of Okhotsk, indicat-ing subduction of the Okhotomorsk Block beneath the Siberian margin.It was also suggested that the Okhotomorsk Block collided with SakhalinIsland during the Paleogene, forming westward convergent structuresin NE Japan and Sakhalin (Otsuki, 1992; Maruyama et al., 1997; Taira,2001) (Fig. 1). However, debates have been arisen over the origin ofthe Okhotomorsk Block before its collision with Siberia during the LateCretaceous. Some researchers suggested that the block was an exotic

terrane to Asia and moved northward with the Izanagi Plate or the KulaPlate in the Mesozoic (Parfenov and Natal'in, 1986; Jolivet et al.,1988; Otsuki, 1992). Before its collision with Siberia, it collided withNE Japan during the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous (Jolivet et al., 1988),or moved along the trench to the east of Japan during the Early Creta-ceous (Otsuki, 1992) (Fig. 4). Others argued that the block was an ex-pelled fragment as a result of the scissor-like closure of the Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean during the Early Mesozoic (Şengör and Natal'in, 1996;Bindeman et al., 2002) (Fig. 1).

The geological units of Japan Islands are classified by origin of forma-tion mainly into the Paleozoic non-accretionary belts (Hida, Oki, SouthKitakami, and Kurosegawa), accretionary complexes of Carboniferousto Paleogene age, and the Cretaceous Sanbagawa high-pressure

Fig. 3. A brief summary of events occurred in East Asia during the Late Cretaceous, including: exhumation, sedimentation, deformation, accretion, mylonitization, and magmatism. Thecollision of the Okhotomorsk Block within East Asia resulted in the onset of rapid cooling and exhumation in South China, North China, East Mongolia, South Korea, and SW Japan atabout 100–96 Ma. The collision and subsequent strike-slip movement of the Okhotomorsk Block resulted in the hiatus of accretionary activity in SW Japan from the late Cenomanianto the Santonian (about 96–83 Ma). The oblique movement of the Okhotomorsk along the NE-striking Asian margin during 89–83 Ma caused a rapid exhumation of Sanbagawa HPmetamorphic rocks and mylonitization along the MTL in SW Japan, and rapid uplifting and compressive deformation in NE Japan, SE Russia and NE China. After the OkhotomorskBlock passed the NE-striking Asian margin at about 83 Ma, an extensional setting occurred in SW Japan, leading to the formation of the Izumi Basin to the west of the MTL. At about79 Ma, the Okhotomorsk Block collidedwith the Siberian margin, resulting in the cessation of arc magmatism in the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanic belt. At about 77 Ma, the Izanagi oceaniclithosphere began to subduct beneath the Okhotomorsk from the south, causing magmatism, regional metamorphism, and accumulation of the late Campanianmarine clastic sedimentsalong the southern and eastern margins of the Okhotomorsk.

100 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

metamorphic belt (Taira et al., 1983; Isozaki, 1996; Taira, 2001; Isozakiet al., 2010; Wakita, 2013) (Fig. 2a). The Hida and Oki belts consistmainly of Paleozoic sedimentary and metamorphic rocks which weredeposited along the Asian continental margin during the Middle-LatePaleozoic time and were subjected to metamorphism during theCarboniferous–Early Triassic, forming the core of the Phanerozoic growthof Japan Islands (Isozaki, 1996; Isozaki et al., 2010; Wakita, 2013). TheSouth Kitakami Belt in NE Japan consists of Paleo-Mesozoic igneousand metamorphic rocks, and shallow marine continental shelf depositsof Silurian to Jurassic age (Isozaki, 1996;Wakita, 2013). Itwas interpretedas a tectonic outlier of the South China Block continental margin(Isozaki, 1996), while others defined it as an exotic landmass (island

arc ormicrocontinent)whichmovedwith the Izanagi plate and collidedwith proto-Japan in the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Otsuki, 1992;Kato and Saka, 2003; Charvet, 2013) (Fig. 4). The hundreds-kilometerlong and several-kilometer wide Kurosegawa Belt in SW Japan consistsof a series of lenses of Paleo-Mesozoic granitic, metamorphic, and shal-low marine sedimentary rocks surrounded by serpentinite (Taira et al.,1983; Maruyama et al., 1984; Wakita, 2013). It separates the ChichibuBelt into the North Chichibu Belt, an Early-Middle Jurassic accretionarycomplex, and the South Chichibu Belt, a Middle Jurassic–earliest Creta-ceous accretionary complex (Hada et al., 2001; Ishida et al., 2003) (Fig.2). The Chichibu Belt and the intervening Kurosegawa Belt as a wholethrust over the Cretaceous Shimanto accretionary complexes above

(a) 140-130 Ma (b) 130-115 Ma

(d) 85-53 Ma(c) 115-85 Ma

Fig. 4. Tectonic sketch map of Japan in (a) 140–130 Ma, (b) 130–115 Ma, (c) 115–85 Ma, and (d) 85–53 Ma (after Otsuki, 1992).

101Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

the Butsuzo Tectonic Line (BTL) (Kato and Saka, 2003; Ito et al., 2009;Charvet, 2013) (Fig. 2). A number of models have been proposed forthe origin of the Kurosegawa Belt. It was interpreted as a strike-slipmo-bile zone along which basement rocks of continental margin or islandarc were tectonically sliced and transported (Taira et al., 1983), an exot-ic landmass which collided with proto-Japan in the Late Jurassic–EarlyCretaceous (Maruyama et al., 1984; Otsuki, 1992; Charvet, 2013)(Fig. 4a), or a far-travelled klippe-like tectonic outlier of the SouthChina Block continental margin (Isozaki, 1996).

Nearly 80% of basement rocks in Japan consist of ancient accretionarycomplexes which young oceanward from Carboniferous–Triassic to

Paleogene age (Isozaki, 1996; Isozaki et al., 2010) (Fig. 2a). The Ryokehigh-temperature metamorphic belt to the north of the MTL was a prod-uct of plutonometamorphism of the Jurassic accretionary complex duringthe mid-Cretaceous (Nakajima, 1994; Suzuki and Adachi, 1998; Wakita,2013). The Ryoke Belt is unconformably covered by the Late Cretaceouselongate clastic basin, Izumi Group, while under them there is a majorupper crustal-scale half-graben, the Seto Subsurface Prism (SSP) (Itoet al., 2009) (Fig. 2c). The Cretaceous Shimanto accretionary prism is sep-arated from the Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous accretionary prism by theBTL and has two sub-belts, the Lower Cretaceous sub-belt to the northand the Upper Cretaceous sub-belt to the south (Taira et al., 1988)

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 5. Age distribution pattern of detrital zircons in (a) Sredinny Massif, Kamchatka, (b) SW Japan, with locations in Fig. 2 except the sample KRB-1, and (c) Taiwan.

102 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

100 Ma

Magma invasionand eruption

Continental-oceanicconvergent boundary

Izanagi motion direction(Norton, 2007)

Izanagi Plate

Eurasia

Okhotomorsk

500 km

Undifferentiatednonmarine basinsand erosion areas

GB

Marine sedimentationon continent

Successive nonmarinesedimentation

Presumed location of

the Kurosegawa Belt

Fig. 6. Paleogeographic map of East Asia at about 100 Ma. GB: Gyeongsang Basin. TheOkhotomorsk Block moved with the Izanagi Plate in a direction of N35°W and collidedwith the South China Block at the East Asian margin.

103Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

(Fig. 2b). The Lower Cretaceous sub-belt consists of Neocomian toCenomanian clastics (Figs. 2b and 3) and is tightly folded. Taira et al.(1988) suggested that this sub-belt was probably a transform fault zonealong the Asian margin before the accretion of the southern sub-beltduring the Campanian. The Upper Cretaceous sub-belt is composed ofLate Jurassic–Early Cretaceous basalt, nannofossil-bearing limestone,and radiolarian chert; Cenomanian–Santonian pelagic shale, hemipelagicshale, and acidic tuff; and Campanian trench clastic rocks (Taira et al.,1988; Taira, 2001). The Early Cretaceous pillow lavas and nannofossilsformed at equatorial latitude, but the Campanian turbidite units weredeposited approximately at their present latitude, suggesting that theoceanic crust moved north at least 3000 km in the mid-Cretaceous andwas rapidly subducted and accreted along the Asian margin during theCampanian time (Taira et al., 1988; Taira, 2001) (Figs. 2b and 3).

The Sanbagawa Belt (Fig. 2a), extending SW–NE for more than800 km from Central to SW Japan, is composed of rocks subjectedto high-pressure type metamorphism of pumpellyite–actinolite faciesthrough blueschist transition facies, to epidote–amphibolite and eclogitefacies (Aoki et al., 2011). It has been traditionally defined to be a typicaloceanic subduction-related high-pressure metamorphic belt whoseprotolith was a Jurassic–Early Cretaceous accretionary prism accumu-lated in a shallow part of the trench (Isozaki and Itaya, 1990; Isozaki,1996; Maruyama et al., 1997; Isozaki et al., 2010; Aoki et al., 2011).However, recently, it was recognized that protoliths of manymetamor-phic rocks in the traditional Sanbagawa Belt formed as an accretionarycomplex after 90–80 Ma and suffered a progressive metamorphismduring about 80–60 Ma (Aoki et al., 2011; Itaya et al., 2011). Theywere separated from the Sanbagawa Belt and were named as theShimanto metamorphic belt (Aoki et al., 2011) (Fig. 2b).

Zircon U–Pb dating of the meta-sandstone (QM) intercalated witheclogite of the Sanbagawa Belt in central Shikoku yields an age of 132–112 Ma for rims which grown around older cores mainly of the latestJurassic–earliest Cretaceous age (Okamoto et al., 2004) (Figs. 2b and5b). This study has become a major basis for the suggestion that thepeak metamorphism of the Sanbagawa Belt in eclogite facies occurredduring 120–110 Ma (e.g. Isozaki et al., 2010; Aoki et al., 2011; Itayaet al., 2011). However, based on a garnet–omphacite Lu–Hf isochronage of 89–88 Ma for the Sanbagawa Belt in Shikoku, Wallis et al.(2009) suggested a peak metamorphism exceeding 1.8 GPa at about89 Ma and an extreme rapid exhumation of at least 2.5 cm/yr during89–85 Ma. Before the belt was exposed at about 50 Ma, it experiencedamuch slower exhumation at middle crustal levels. In addition, interest-ingly, the Sanbagawa Belt was imaged by seismic data to be a several-ki-lometer wide, gently north-dipping belt which extends from the uppercrust to a depth of about 30 km to the south of the MTL (Ito et al.,2009) (Fig. 2c).

Although the Sanbagawa Belt has long been ascribed as an oceanicsubduction-related high-pressuremetamorphic belt, Charvet (2013) pro-posed that the oceanic subduction model is unable to explain the highpeakmetamorphic pressure of 2.9 to 3.8 GPa of the Higashi–Akaishi peri-dotite body in the Sanbagawa Belt (Enami et al., 2004; Ota et al., 2004)(Fig. 2b), whichwasmost likely formed in a collisional orogen. Accordingto Guillot et al. (2009), the maximum pressures recorded in exhumedmetamorphic rocks formed in the accretionary-type subduction scenariovary from 0.7 to 2.0 GPa. In addition, it was suggested by Charvet (2013)that the fast exhumation of at least 2.5 cm/yr of the Sanbagawa Belt dur-ing 89–85 Ma (Wallis et al., 2009) could not be achieved in theaccretionary-type subduction setting inwhich the exhumation rates gen-erally range between 1 and 5 mm/yr (Guillot et al., 2009).

3. The new tectonic model

3.1. The collision of the Okhotomorsk Block with the East Asian margin

It was suggested that the Okhotomorsk Block, South Kitakami Belt,and Kurosegawa Belt all derived from the Izanagi Plate and migrated

towards Eurasia during the Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Otsuki, 1992)(Fig. 4a). The South Kitakami Belt and Kurosegawa Belt collided withproto-Japan at about 140 Ma (Otsuki, 1992; Charvet, 2013), but at thesame time the Okhotomorsk Block moved northward along the trenchat the East Asian margin (Otsuki, 1992). However, the model proposedhere suggests that the Okhotomorsk Block arrived at the East Asianmargin at about 100 Ma much later than the South Kitakami Belt andthe Kurosegawa Belt did at about 140 Ma (Otsuki, 1992; Charvet,2013), and it first collided with the South China Block during the earlyLate Cretaceous.

At about 100 Ma, the Okhotomorsk Block moved with the IzanagiPlate in a direction of N35°W (Norton, 2007) and collided with theSouth China Block at the East Asian margin (Fig. 6). Between 100 and89 Ma, the northwestward-advancing Okhotomorsk Block caused theformation of a sinistral strike-slip fault system in the southern SouthChina Block (Fig. 7a). An Early Eocene reconstruction of SE Asia showsthat before opening of the South China Sea there was a large concavityat the Asian margin to the southeast of Taiwan (Hall, 2002) (Fig. 1),which, according to the new model, corresponds to the southernindenter corner formed during the collision. Topographically, there arethree NW-trending linear low-lying lines across the Nanling Mountains(NL) (Fig. 1). A series of small pull-part basinswere formed beside themand filled with red clastic sediments interbedded with basalts of 96 Ma(Chen, 2000; Shu et al., 2004; Ma et al., 2009) (Fig. 3). The Ziyun–Luodian Fault (ZLF) to the south of the Sichuan Basin (Fig. 1) was amajor normal fault during the Paleozoic–Triassic (Ma et al., 2009). It

(a)

(b)

Fig. 7. (a) Paleogeographic map of East Asia during 100–89 Ma. (b) Schematic crosssection of AB with location in (a). Mountain belts, CB: Changbai Mountains; DB: DabieMountains; DL: Dalou Mountains; LL: Lüliang Mountains; LU: Luxi Uplift; NL: NanlingMountains; QL: Qinling Mountains; TH: Taihang Mountains; WY: Wuyi Mountains; XF:Xuefeng Mountains; Y: Yellow Mountains; YAN: Yan Mountains; YIN: Yin Mountains.Basins, BBB: Bohai Bay Basin; EGB: East Gobi Basin; GB: Gyeongsang Basin; HB: HengyangBasin; JB: Jiaolai Basin; MB: Mayang Basin; OB: Ordos Basin; SB: Sichuan Basin; SYB:Subei-Yellow Sea Basin. Strike-slip faults, SF: Shangyi-Gubeikou-Pingquan Fault; TF:Taiyingzhen-Lengkou-Shangying Fault; ZLF: Ziyun-Luodian Fault. RB: Ryoke Belt. The in-dentation of the Okhotomorsk Block within East Asia resulted in the formation of a sinis-tral strike-slip fault system in South China and a dextral strike-slip fault system in NorthChina, and regional NW–SE shortening and orogenic exhumation in East Asia.

104 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

became a sinistral transpressional fault in the Late Mesozoic (Zhanget al., 2009) and granites of 93–91 Ma were found in the Dachang areaalong the fault (Cai et al., 2006) (Figs. 1 and 3). It is suggested herethat during the indentation, several sinistral strike-slip faults initiatedat the indenter corner and propagated northwestwards into the NanlingMountains, resulting in transpressional uplifting of the NW-strikingrange belts, small-scale magmatism, and formation of small pull-part

basins (Fig. 7a). The southernmost major fault, along the main valleyof the Pearl River, propagated northwestward, forming the ZLF on thePaleozoic weak zone.

The collisional event produced a dextral strike-slip fault system fromJapan to North China (Fig. 7a). Paleographic reconstructions of Japanshow that prior to large-scale sinistral strike-slip faulting in NE Japanin the mid-Cretaceous there was a large concavity at the continentalmargin between SW and NE Japan (Otsuki, 1992) (Fig. 4b), which maycorrespond to the northern indenter corner. A major dextral strike-slip fault may have initiated at the corner and propagated northwest-wards through the Changbai Mountains to the northern margin of theNorth China Block, creating the big bend at the northeastern end ofthe Jiao-Liao-Ji Belt (Zhao et al., 2005). Due to the resistance of theAmurian Microcontinent to the northwestward propagation of thisfault, dextral strike-slip movement occurred along the E–W-strikingmarginal fault of the North China Block. Another northwest-trendingdextral strike-slip fault belt may have originated from the KoreanPeninsula and propagated to the southern Yan Mountains, wheremajor dextral strike-slip faults were active during the Cretaceous,such as Shangyi-Gubeikou-Pingquan Fault (SF) and Taiyingzhen-Lengkou-Shangying Fault (TF) (Ma, 2002; Zhang et al., 2001, 2004)(Figs. 1 and 7a). Westward movement of the fault belt along the SFand the Precambrian suture zone of the Khondalite Belt (Zhao et al.,2005) bent the Trans-North China Orogen. Due to the transpressionalmovement of these dextral strike-slip faults, the Changbai (CB) (Liet al., 2010), Yan (Wu and Wu, 2003a), and Yin (Wu and Wu, 2003b)mountains underwent regional transpressional uplift (Fig. 3). Theearly Late Cretaceous basaltic rocks were found in the Yan Mountainsand its adjacent areas (Chen and Chen, 1997; Xu et al., 2001), whichwere possibly related to the strike-slip motion of the dextral strike-slip fault system. The resistance of the Amurian Microcontinent to thenorthwestward motion of the North China Block produced compres-sional stresses to the north of the North China Block, leading to theformation of significant angular unconformities between the Lowerand Upper Cretaceous sequences in the East Gobi Basin (Grahamet al., 2001; Johnson, 2004), and several other basins in the China–Mongolia border region (Meng et al., 2003) (Figs. 3 and 7a).

To the west of the indenting Okhotomorsk Block, between afore-mentioned sinistral and dextral strike-slip fault systems, the indentationwas mainly accommodated by NW–SE-directed crustal shortening(Fig. 7). Mountain ranges peaking between 3500 m and 4000 m abovesea level rapidly formed in SE China (Chen, 2000), resulting in a retreatof sea water from SE China at 99 ± 3 Ma after the Early Cretaceoustransgression (Hu et al., 2012) (Figs. 3, 6 and 7a). Thermochronologicalages from the Ryoke Belt (RB) basement in Kyushu, SW Japan suggestthat several kilometers of uplift and denudation occurred approximatelyduring 100–80 Ma (Kamp and Takemura, 1993) (Fig. 3). The accretion-ary activity in SW Japan was halted between the late Cenomanian andthe Santonian (Taira et al., 1988; Hara and Kimura, 2008) (Figs. 2b and3). An orogenic exhumation event ended siliciclastic sedimentation inthe Gyeongsang (GB) and other basins in South Korea (Choi and Lee,2011; Zhang et al., 2012) (Fig. 3). Therefore, in front of the indenter,NE-striking mountain belts with a width of over 500 km extendedfrom SE China to SW Japan and South Korea (Fig. 7a). To the west ofthese mountain belts, conglomerates, sandstones, and red mudstonesof alluvial fan, fluvial, eolian, and brackish lacustrine environmentswere deposited above a regional Cenomanian unconformity in theSubei-Yellow Sea Basin (SYB), Jianghan Basin (JHB), and other smallbasins (Charvet et al., 1994; Chen, 2000; Ma et al., 2009; Hu et al.,2012). To the northeast of the ZLF in the South China Block, the XuefengMountains (XF), Dalou Mountains (DL), and eastern Sichuan Basin (SB)were intensely deformed and uplifted (Fig. 7a). Detrital zircon geochro-nologic studies suggested that the Xuefeng Mountains became an im-portant topographic high and divide between the Hengyang Basin toits east and the Mayang Basin to its west since the Late Cretaceous(Yan et al., 2011). The eastern Sichuan Basin and the Dalou Mountains

IzanagiPlate

89-79 Ma

Okhotomorsk

Siberia

LF

SKTL AB

TT

L

GX

SAFB

CB

500 km

CS

AF

(a)

(b)

Nonmarine sedimentationabove an unconformity

Magma invasionand eruption

Continental-oceanicconvergent boundary

Highlands

Strike-slip fault

MountainsMarine sedimentationon continent

Izanagi motion direction(Norton, 2007)

Undifferentiatednonmarine basinsand erosion areas

Successive nonmarinesedimentation

SYB

SLB

CNF

BA K

mk03

50 km

MTL

South China Okhotomorsk

TLF

Sanbagawa Belt

Fig. 8. (a) Paleogeographicmap of East Asia during 89–79 Ma. (b) Schematic cross sectionof AB with location in (a). Mountain belts, CB: Changbai Mountains; GX: Great Xing'anMountains; SAFB: Sikhote-Alin Fold Belt. Basins, SLB: Songliao Basin; SYB: Subei-YellowSea Basin. Strike-slip faults, CNF: Changle-Nanao Fault; CSAF: Central Sikhote-Alin Fault;K: Kurosegawa Belt; LF: Lishui Fault; MTL: Median Tectonic Line; SKTL: South KoreanTectonic Line; TLF: Tanlu Fault; TTL: Tanakura Tectonic Line. The Okhotomorsk Blockmoved northward along the East Asian margin due to the change from N35°W toN15°W in Izanagi motion direction. The northeastward oblique motion of theOkhotomorsk Block along the transform zone at the Asian margin resulted in rapid exhu-mation of Sanbagawa high-pressuremetamorphic rocks through the ductile shear zone atthe lower crust and upper mantle level, and formation of an upper crustal strike-slip faultsystem of several tens of kilometers wide.

105Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

are composed of a series of NE–SW-trending folds in which the LowerCretaceous rocks are the youngest strata (Ma, 2002; D.P. Yan et al.,2003; Liu et al., 2012). Fission track analyses indicate that theyunderwent a rapid exhumation during the early Late Cretaceous (Huet al., 2006; Shen et al., 2009) (Fig. 3). In Central China, the Qinling–Dabie (QL andDB)mountain belts experienced a rapid cooling associatedwith dextral strike-slip faulting and NW–SE shortening during 100–70 Ma (Grimmer et al., 2002; Ratschbacher et al., 2003; Enkelmannet al., 2006; Cui et al., 2012) (Fig. 3).

Structural studies indicated that the Jiaolai Basin (JB) and its neigh-boring areas in the eastern North China Block underwent a NW–SEcompression between 100 and 90 Ma (Zhang et al., 2003), possiblycausing a rapid uplifting and denudation event in the Luxi Uplift (LU)(Wang et al., 2008) and the Bohai Bay Basin (BBB) (Xu et al., 2001;Zhu et al., 2012) (Figs. 3 and 7a). Sediments were transported from re-gionswithin the uplifted North China Block and deposited in the Subei–Yellow Sea Basin (SYB) (Ma et al., 2009). The Taihang Mountains (TH),the Lüliang Mountains (LL), and the central syncline in the Trans-North China Orogen were folded and uplifted (Xu et al., 2001; Ma,2002; Li and Song, 2010) (Figs. 3 and 7a). Further to thewest, structuralstudies suggested that the Ordos Basin experienced a NW–SE compres-sion during 100–90 Ma and rapid uplifting changed the basin into anerosional area during the Late Cretaceous (Yang et al., 2005; Zhanget al., 2011) (Figs. 3 and 7a).

It is suggested here the remnant ocean between the OkhotomorskBlock and the East Asian margin was possibly closed in a scissor-likemanner in 100–96 Ma (Fig. 6). Collision possibly first occurred besideSE China, and then beside SW Japan. Theonset of rapid cooling and exhu-mation in various areas in South China occurred at about 100 Ma (e.g.Chen, 2000; Grimmer et al., 2002; Enkelmann et al., 2006; Hu et al.,2006; Shen et al., 2009; Yan et al., 2011; Zheng et al., 2011; Cui et al.,2012; Hu et al., 2012) (Fig. 3). However, most areas in the North ChinaBlock including basins in South Korea (Choi and Lee, 2011) began to un-dergo orogenic uplift at about 96–95 Ma and the hiatus of accretionaryactivity in SW Japan was from the late Cenomanian to the Santonian(about 96–83 Ma) (Taira et al., 1988; Hara and Kimura, 2008) (Fig. 3).

3.2. Strike-slip motion of the Okhotomorsk Block

At about 90–89 Ma, the Okhotomorsk Block, which had not beencompletely sutured with the South China Block, began to move north-ward with the north-northwestward-moving Izanagi Plate (Figs. 7aand 8a). The starting time of the northwardmotion of the Okhotomorskat about 90–89 Ma is mainly constrained by the rapid exhumation ofSanbagawa high-pressure metamorphic rocks in SW Japan during89–85 Ma (Wallis et al., 2009). This suggestion is consistent with theproposal that a rapid change of the motion direction of the IzanagiPlate occurred from N35°W at about 90 Ma to N15°W at about 84 Ma(Norton, 2007), and consistent generally with the model of a rapidlynorthward-moving Izanagi–Pacific ridge between 100 and 84 Ma(Smith, 2003, 2007). The most intense volcanism in the Okhotsk-Chukotka arc of NE Asia began at 89 Ma (Tikhomirov et al., 2012)(Figs. 1 and 3), possibly resulted from the onset of orthogonal subduc-tion of the Izanagi Plate below the Siberian margin. High-resolutionmantle tomographic data show a high-velocity zone at 900 km depthbelow the Yellow Sea and SE China (Huang and Zhao, 2006) (Fig. 7a),which may correspond to the remnant of the oceanic slab detachedfrom the Okhotomorsk.

3.2.1. The sinistral transform fault zoneThe oblique motion of the Okhotomorsk Block along the NE-striking

Asianmargin to the south of the northern indenter corner during about89–83 Ma was achieved through displacement of a significant sinistraltransform fault zone between the Eurasian Plate and the OkhotomorskBlock (Fig. 8). The transform fault zone is composed of a several-kilometer wide ductile shear zone at the lower crust and upper

mantle level, and an upper crustal strike-slip fault system several tensof kilometers wide (Fig. 8b).

The definition of the vertical ductile shear zone at the lower crustand upper mantle level is based on the following evidences. (1) Seismicdata show that the Sanbagawa Belt is a several-kilometer wide, gentlynorth-dipping belt to the south of the MTL (Ito et al., 2009) (Fig. 2c).(2) According to P–T estimates of the Iratsu eclogitic body and

106 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Higashi–Akaishi peridotite body (Fig. 2b), a sandwiched thermobaricstructure was proposed for the exhumation of the Sanbagawa Belt(Ota et al., 2004). The highest-grade rocks were tectonically thinnedas a slice by ductile deformation and were exhumed rapidly fromabout 90 km depth to mid-crustal levels. (3) Sanbagawa metamorphicrocks were exhumed at a rate of at least 2.5 cm/yr during 89–85 Ma(Wallis et al., 2009), which is much higher compared to mostultrahigh-pressure and high-pressure units formed in continental-typesubduction scenarios (Guillot et al., 2009). (4) Sanbagawa metamorphicrocks were raised to the mid-crustal level at about 85 Ma (Ota et al.,2004; Wallis et al., 2009), suggesting that the rapidly exhumingpathway ended at the mid-crustal level. (5) The pervasive, nearlystrike-parallel, retrograde stretching lineation in the Sanbagawa Beltsuggests a gently rising eastward trajectory along a sinistral strike-slipmargin of Asia (Wintsch et al., 1999;Wallis et al., 2009). (6) Amylonitezone, several hundreds to a thousandmeters wide, was found along theMTL in the Ryokemetamorphic belt near the Takato area (Takagi, 1986)(Fig. 2a). Asymmetric microstructures and the attitude of stretchinglineations in themylonite zone suggest that sinistral strike-slip shearingwith a minor vertical-slip component occurred during the mid-Cretaceous mylonitization (Takagi, 1986; Otsuki, 1992) (Fig. 3). (7) Afault zone less than 10 km wide was also found in the lower crust justbelow the San Andreas Fault in Northern California (Henstock et al.,1997), the best modern example of continental transform faults. (8) Nu-merical models of deformation at a continental transform boundary(Roy and Royden, 2000; Platt and Behr, 2011) suggest a narrow ductileshear zone 50 m to 7 km wide at the lower crust and upper mantlelevel.

At the upper crustal level, a series of sinistral strike-slip faults possi-bly constituted a large flower structure several tens of kilometers wideat the East Asian transform margin (Fig. 8b). The numerical model(Roy and Royden, 2000) suggests that at a continental transform bound-ary a network of interacting strike-slip faults form in the upper crust andthese faults have a spatial connection to the narrow lower crustal shearzone. The strike-slip faults subdivided the accretionary complexessuccessively accumulated along the East Asian margin during theJurassic–Early Cretaceous into narrow, long, and subparallel belts,such as the Early-Middle Jurassic North Chichibu Belt, the MiddleJurassic–earliest Cretaceous South Chichibu Belt, and the Neocomian–Cenomanian Shimanto sub-belt (Taira et al., 1983, 1988; Hada et al.,2001; Ishida et al., 2003) (Fig. 2). Transpressional stresses producedfolded structures in these narrow belts (Taira et al., 1988). This patternis very similar to that of the San Andreas fault system in California,which is several tens of kilometers wide and composed of a series offaults subparallel to the San Andreas Fault (Hill et al., 1990; Meadeand Hager, 2005; Platt and Becker, 2010). It is reminded here that thefault system might have been partially eroded during the exhumationof the Sanbagawa andRyokemetamorphic belts from themiddle crustallevel in the latest Cretaceous–Paleogene (Okudaira et al., 2009; Walliset al., 2009) (Fig. 2).

There possibly was a vertical main strike-slip fault in the East Asiantransform boundary, which connected the lower crustal shear zoneand accommodated a high percentage of the relative movementbetween the Eurasian Plate and the Okhotomorsk Block (Fig. 8b). Itsrole in the East Asian transform margin is similar to that of the SanAndreas Fault in the San Andreas transform boundary between thePacific and North America plates (Hill et al., 1990; Meade and Hager,2005; Platt and Becker, 2010). The formation of the narrow and longKurosegawa Belt in SW Japan (Fig. 2) was probably related to thelarge scale left-lateral offset of the main fault (Fig. 8b). The KurosegawaBelt is composed of lenses of Ordovician–Early Cretaceous granitic,metamorphic, and shallow marine sedimentary rocks surrounded byserpentinite or bounded by faults (Taira et al., 1983; Maruyama et al.,1984; Hada et al., 2001; Wakita, 2013) (Fig. 2). It was defined as anexotic landmass which collided with the East Asian margin during theLate Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Maruyama et al., 1984; Otsuki, 1992;

Charvet, 2013) (Fig. 4a). Taira et al. (1983) interpreted this belt as astrike-slip mobile zone through which lateral displacement of over1000 km occurred and numerous tectonic blocks totally unrelated tothe Jurassic–Early Cretaceous accretionary complex were deliveredinto Japan. A recent paleomagnetic study (Uno et al., 2011) reported adifference in paleolatitude (14° ± 3°) for the Kurosegawa Belt betweenthe Early Cretaceous and the present, implying a northward translationof ~1500 ±300 km from the position of the South China Block to itspresent position during themid-Cretaceous. Integrating all the informa-tion together, it is suggested here that a relatively small terrane possiblycollided with the South China Block during the Late Jurassic–earliestCretaceous (Maruyama et al., 1984; Otsuki, 1992; Charvet, 2013)(Fig. 6). During the Early Cretaceous, shallow marine sediments weredeposited above this block (Hada et al., 2001; Ishida et al., 2003) andaccretionary complexes were accumulated to its east. When theOkhotomorsk Block moved obliquely along the NE-striking Asianmargin during 89–83 Ma, the block was possibly located beside themain strike-slip fault of the transform boundary. Upper crustal rockson the block were tectonically sliced and transported laterally alongthe main strike-slip fault for over 1000 km (Taira et al., 1983; Unoet al., 2011). The ubiquitous serpentinite both in the Kurosegawa Belt(Taira et al., 1983) and along the San Andreas Fault (e.g. Moore andRymer, 2007; Holdsworth et al., 2011) further supports that rock lensof the Kurosegawa Belt were transported along the main strike-slipfault through which serpentinite was migrated from the upper mantlelevel.

3.2.2. Effects in a much broader regionVelocity data from the western United States indicate that the plate

boundary right-lateral motion extends at least 1000 km to the west ofthe SanAndreas Fault,with strain rate and total displacementdecreasingaway from the transform fault zone (Platt and Becker, 2010; Parsons andThatcher, 2011). Similarly, the effect of the oblique sinistral motion ofthe Okhotomorsk Block along the NE-striking Asian margin reached abroader region to the west of the transform margin (Fig. 8a). Severalmajor sinistral strike-slip faults formed or reactivated, including theLishui Fault (LF) (Chen, 2000), Changle-Nanao Fault (CNF) (Charvetet al., 1994), and Tanlu Fault (TLF) (Zhang et al., 2003). A series ofsmall NE–SW trending pull apart basins developed in Southeast Chinain the Late Cretaceous (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierre et al., 1997; Maet al., 2009). E–W trending stretching lineations formed throughoutthe Ryoke metamorphic belt in SW Japan, associated with a top-to-the-west sense of shear (Adachi and Wallis, 2008; Okudaira et al.,2009) (Fig. 2a). Japan Islands (Taira et al., 1983; Kanaori, 1990; Otsuki,1992) and South Korea (Hwang et al., 2008) were subdivided intomany blocks by strike-slip faults along which the Late Cretaceousmagmatism mainly occurred.

It is presumed here that the northern indenter corner resistedthe motion of the Okhotomorsk Block (Figs. 7a and 8a). An intensecompression occurred between the Okhotomorsk and the region tothe north of the indenter corner. Counterclockwise rotation, sinistralstrike-slip faulting, and rapid uplifting occurred in NE Japan (Itoh et al.,2000), forming the major TTL which may have extended through theTatar Strait and several other strike-slip fault zones (Otsuki, 1992)(Figs. 2a, 4b, c, and 8a). The rapid uplifting in central Hokkaido andsouthern Sakhalin caused a change of depositional environment fromdeep marine to shallow marine and non-marine in these areas (Ando,2003; Hasegawa et al., 2003) (Fig. 3). The major sinistral strike-slipfault, CSAF, had a displacement of about 200 km, and folding andthrusting occurred in the SAFB (Zonenshain et al., 1990). Sea waterretreated from the Sanjiang-Middle Amur Basin and the SAFB in thelate Turonian (Kirillova, 2003) (Figs. 3, 7a, and 8a). At the Turonian–Coniacian boundary (about 88 Ma), the Songliao Basin experienced along subaerial exposure and weathering, forming a major angularunconformity within the Upper Cretaceous sequences (Feng et al.,2010) (Figs. 3 and 8a). Fission track analyses indicate that the Great

(c)

(b)

(a)

107Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Xing'anMountains began to undergo a rapid cooling at about 90 Ma (Liet al., 2011) (Figs. 3 and 8a).

3.2.3. Extension and magmatism following the transpressional regimeWhen the southwestern end of the Okhotomorsk Block passed the

NE-striking Asian margin to the south of the northern indenter cornerat about 83 Ma (Figs. 8a and 9a), the long and subparallel accretionarybelts and the Kurosegawa Belt in the upper crustal fault system andthe Sanbagawa metamorphic belt in the shear zone at lower crust andupper mantle levels were left behind in SW Japan. The space left bythe departed lithosphere of the Okhotomorsk was rapidly filled bysubduction of oceanic lithosphere to its south, forming the highly-deformed Shimanto accretionary prism in SW Japan during the earlyCampanian (Taira et al., 1988) (Fig. 9b). Easing of the transpressionalregime led to relaxation of areas to the west of the continental margin.The MTL and Sanbagawa rocks began to dip gently to the northwestand normal faulting commenced to northwest of the MTL (Fig. 9b).The Seto Subsurface Prism developed (Ito et al., 2009) and receivedmarine sedimentation of the Izumi Group after about 83 Ma (Nodaand Toshimitsu, 2009) (Figs. 2, 3, and 9b). The deep subduction of theShimanto accretionary prism beneath the Asian margin resulted in theformation of Shimanto HP metamorphic rocks at the latest Cretaceous(Aoki et al., 2011) (Fig. 9b). Charvet (2013) suggested that a continentalblock called Shimanto Block collided with SW Japan during 80-60 Ma.This suggestion is inconsistent with the geological fact that a wideUpper Cretaceous accretionary prism formed along the Japanesemarginduring the Campanian-Maastrichtian (Taira et al., 1988; Taira, 2001)(Fig. 2b). The suggested collisional and compressive event (Charvet,2013)was contradictory to the extensional setting shown by the forma-tion of the Seto Subsurface Prism (Ito et al., 2009) and the deposition ofthe Izumi Group (Noda and Toshimitsu, 2009) to the northwest of theMTL during the latest Cretaceous (Fig. 2c).

During the Late Cretaceous, especially between 90 and 75 Ma,intense magmatism occurred in a belt hundreds of kilometers wideextending from SE China (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierre et al., 1997) andTaiwan (Yui et al., 2009; Wintsch et al., 2011), through South Korea(Zhang et al., 2012) and SW Japan (Otsuki, 1992; Nakajima, 1994;Suzuki and Adachi, 1998), to the SAFB, in Russia (Zonenshain et al.,1990) (Fig. 1). Traditionally the Late Cretaceous igneous rocks are con-sidered as products of continental arcs related to oceanic subduction(Nakajima, 1994; Isozaki, 1996; Maruyama et al., 1997; Isozaki et al.,2010). However, it is suggested here that the oblique motion of theOkhotomorsk Block along the NE-striking Asian margin was possiblyan important trigger for this magmatic event. As mentioned above,the plate boundary sinistral motion produced a regional effect to thewest of the transform fault zone and to the north of the northernindenter corner. Many major and minor strike-slip faults formed,separating big areas into many small blocks (Kanaori, 1990; Hwanget al., 2008). With migration of the Okhotomorsk along the NE-strikingAsian margin, areas near the margin gradually relaxed landwardand eastward (Figs. 8a and 9b). Extensional forces following thetranspressional regime may have contributed to the large number ofgaps between blocks separated by previously formed faults, creatingspace to host igneous intrusions. This interpretation is supported bythe following evidences. The Late Cretaceous granites in SW Japangenerally have a tendency of landward and eastward younging

Fig. 9. (a) Paleogeographicmap of East Asia during 79–77 Ma. (b) Schematic cross sectionof ABwith location in (a). (c) Schematic cross section of CDwith location in (a). IG: IzumGroup; MTL: Median Tectonic Line; SSP: Seto Subsurface Prism. The Okhotomorsk Blockcollided with the Siberian margin. At about 77 Ma, the Izanagi oceanic lithospherebegan to subduct beneath the Okhotomorsk, causing magmatism, regional metamor-phism, and accumulation of accretionary prism along its margin. The departure of theOkhotomorsk Block from the NE-striking Asian margin resulted in the occurrence of anextensional setting (tilting of crustal structures), formation of a wide magmatic beltand formation of highly-deformed accretionary prism along the margin.

i

,

(Otsuki, 1992; Nakajima, 1994; Suzuki and Adachi, 1998). Granitoidsoccupy about 70–80% of the Ryoke metamorphic belt (Okudairaet al., 2009), suggesting a close correspondence between the SSPwhich underwent the most intense extension (Ito et al., 2009) andthe magmatism during the Late Cretaceous (Fig. 2). Late Cretaceousbimodal volcanism in SE China appears to have been produced byintracontinental extension and rifting, not subduction (Charvet et al.,

108 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

1994; Lapierre et al., 1997). Similarly, volcanism began in the SAFBat the Santonian, after the formation of compressional structures(Zonenshain et al., 1990) (Fig. 3).

After around 83 Ma, the Okhotomorsk Blockmoved along the north-trending Asian margin to the north of the indenter corner (Figs. 8a and9a). As the continental margin was relatively consistent with the north-ward motion of the Izanagi Plate, the block moved along the trench, assuggested by Otsuki (1992), and produced little compression to themargin. Shallowmarine sedimentation continuously occurred in centralHokkaido and southern Sakhalin until about 79 Ma (Ando, 2003;Hasegawa et al., 2003) when the Okhotomorsk Block collided with theSiberian margin (Figs. 3 and 9a).

3.3. The collision of the Okhotomorsk Block with the Siberian margin

At about 79 Ma, the rapidly-moving Okhotomorsk Block began to col-lidewith the Siberianmargin, north of the Okhotsk Sea (Fig. 9a), resultingin the cessation of arc magmatism in the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanicbelt (Tikhomirov et al., 2012) (Figs. 1 and 3). Continental collisionended at about 77 Ma. No significant structural deformations relatedto this relatively short collisional event have been found on the Siberianmargin (Hourigan and Akinin, 2004). A minor intraplate basaltic volca-nism occurred in the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanic belt from 77.5 ±1.1 Ma to 74.0 ± 1.2 Ma (Hourigan and Akinin, 2004; Tikhomirov et al.,2012), possibly resulted from the asthenospheric rise following the slabdetachment from the Okhotomorsk Block (Fig. 9c). The high-velocityzone dipping to the northwest beneath the northern Sea of Okhotsk ispossibly the remnant of the oceanic slab detached from the Okhotomorsk(Gorbatov et al., 2000) (Fig. 9a). At about 77 Ma, the Izanagi oceanic lith-osphere began to subduct beneath the Okhotomorsk from the south. Thisnew subduction causedmagmatism, regionalmetamorphism (Bindemanet al., 2002; Chekhovich et al., 2009), and accumulation of the late Campa-nian marine clastic sediments (Terekhov et al., 2012) along the southernand eastern margins of the Okhotomorsk (Figs. 3, and 9a, c). Because theOkhotomorsk had a northwestward motion along the northwest-trending Asian margin to the north of Sakhalin during its final move-ment phase, a semi-closed oceanic basin formed between its south-western margin and southern Sakhalin, which was closed during thePaleogene (Otsuki, 1992; Maruyama et al., 1997; Taira, 2001) (Fig. 9a).Northeast-trending troughs formed in the northern Okhotsk Sea, receiv-ing Maastrichtian–Cenozoic sediments about 6 km thick (Chekhovichet al., 2009) (Fig. 9a, c).

An issue that needs to be addressed here is why a new oceanicsubduction occurred so fast to the south of the Okhotomorsk Blockafter a short collision between 79 and 77 Ma (Fig. 9), while a newsubduction zone did not initiate to the east of the OkhotomorskBlock after significant structural deformations in East Asia during theOkhotomorsk–East Asia collision in 100–89 Ma (Fig. 7). Geodynamicmodels (Toth and Gurnis, 1998; Hall et al., 2003; Baes et al., 2011) indi-cate that a preexisting weakness zone in the lithosphere is required tofacilitate the subduction initiation process and subduction can occur ifthe weak zone is moderately compressed. It is suggested here a seriesof fractures may have been formed at the ocean–continent transitionareas during the Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision and during thetranspressional motion of the Okhotomorsk Block along the East Asianmargin (Figs. 7a and 8a). When the Okhotomorsk Block collided withthe Siberia Craton, convergence produced compressive forces alongthepreexisting fracture zones to the south and east of the block, bendingthe oceanic lithosphere as it entered the trench. Therefore, a self-sustaining subduction zone was rapidly created (Fig. 9c). In addition,the fast slab detachment from the Okhotomorsk to the north of theblock may have also been related to the preexisting fracture zones atthe ocean–continent transition areas (Fig. 9c). As a result, after a shortcollision between 79 Ma and 77 Ma, an intraplate basaltic volcanismoccurred on the Siberian margin where no significant compressive

structures developed (Hourigan and Akinin, 2004; Tikhomirov et al.,2012).

4. Evidences of Archean and Early Proterozoic zircons

4.1. U–Pb dating of detrital zircons

Abundant Late Archean to Early Proterozoic detrital zircons havebeen found in Cretaceous sandstones in Kamchatka (Bindeman et al.,2002), SW Japan (Okamoto et al., 2004; Nakama et al., 2010; Aokiet al., 2012), and Taiwan (Yui et al., 2012) (Figs. 1 and 5). Differentmodels have been proposed to explain their possible sources. However,it is found that all these models are not convincing.

In Kamchatka, based on U–Pb dating of detrital zircons in metamor-phic basements of the SredinnyMassif, it was suggested that siliciclasticsediments which contain abundant Archean (2900–2500 Ma), EarlyProterozoic (1700–2100 Ma), Ordovician to Early Jurassic (460–175 Ma),and Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous (150–96 Ma) detrital zircons weredeposited at the eastern part of the Okhotomorsk Block during about120–96 Ma (Bindeman et al., 2002) (Fig. 5a). A speculative model wasproposed that the Okhotomorsk formed as a result of the eastward ex-trusion of subduction–accretion materials during the Triassic closure ofthe Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean (Şengör and Natal'in, 1996; Bindemanet al., 2002) (Fig. 1). The Siberia Craton was interpreted as the sourcearea of the Archean, Proterozoic, and Paleozoic zircons found in theSredinny Massif (Bindeman et al., 2002). Only considering the presentarea of the Okhotomorsk Block of about 1.5 million square kilometers,without taking into account its reduced area due to the interaction be-tween the Okhotomorsk Block and Eurasia during the Late Cretaceous(Figs. 6–9), it is suggested here that the definition of this giant blockas an accretionary prism is possibly unrealistic. Moreover, a numberof paleomagnetic and geological studies suggested that the Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean was possibly closed during the Late Jurassic–EarlyCretaceous (e.g. Zonenshain et al., 1990; Yin and Nie, 1996; Zorin, 1999;Kravchinsky et al., 2002; Cogné et al., 2005; Metelkin et al., 2010).

In SW Japan, U–Pb dating of detrital zircons from the Paleozoic toCenozoic sandstones shows that most of Paleozoic, Triassic, Jurassic,Early Cretaceous, and Late Cretaceous sandstones (HTE-3, MRB-1,MTO-1, HU-1, KRM-1, JC6, JC8, QM, NK1, and IZ01) hardly contain theProterozoic grains (Okamoto et al., 2004; Nakama et al., 2010; Aoki etal., 2012) (Figs. 2 and 5b), indicating that siliciclastic flux from twomajor cratons (North China Block and South China Block) was verysmall (Isozaki et al., 2010). It was suggested that the Paleozoic, Jurassic,and mid-Cretaceous arc batholith belts abound Japan were the mainsources during the Paleo-Mesozoic time (Isozaki et al., 2010; Aokiet al., 2012). However, the Late Archean (2700–2500 Ma) and EarlyProterozoic (2500–1500 Ma) zircons form a major component in theSanbagawa Belt (sample BK11, 82% of all dated grains), Shimanto accre-tionary complex (sample 09405-4, 31% of all dated grains), and meta-morphosed Shimanto accretionary complex (sample BK12, 74% of alldated grains), and they are most abundant in the Sanbagawa Belt(BK11) (Aoki et al., 2012).

Aoki et al. (2012) attributed the occurrence of the Proterozoic zir-cons in the Sanbagawa Belt to a basal erosion of the overlying Jurassicaccretionary complex in the subduction zone and those in the Shimantometamorphic belt to another basal erosion of the overlying SanbagawaBelt. They thought these are the only possible mechanisms to explainthe sudden appearance of the Proterozoic zircons in Japan. However,this interpretation is highly doubtful. First, the model of Aoki et al.(2012) is based on a questionable assumption that they only foundthe Proterozoic zircons inmeta-sandstones of the Sanbagawametamor-phic belt and Shimanto metamorphic belt, and never found them in thecoeval nonmetamorphosed accretionary complex and forearc basinsediments. This assumption is inconsistent with their data whichshow that the Proterozoic zircons make up 31% of all dated grains in09405-4, a sandstone sample of the nonmetamorphosed Shimanto

109Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

accretionary complex (Fig. 5b). The second but the most significantcontradiction between themodel and practical data is that U–Pb datingof detrital zircons from sandstones of the Jurassic accretionary complexin SW Japan (e.g. HU-1, KRM-1, and JC6) suggest that they almost do notcontain the Proterozoic zircons delivered from two major ancientChinese continents (Isozaki et al., 2010; Nakama et al., 2010; Aokiet al., 2012). How could the Sanbagawa Belt get an abundant supplyof the Proterozoic grains (82% in BK11) in the subduction zone fromthe overlying Jurassic sediments which almost do not contain theProterozoic grains?

In Taiwan (Fig. 1), age distribution patterns of detrital zircons fromthe metamorphosed rocks which were originated from the Jurassic–Cretaceous accretionary complexes show that the mid-Cretaceousaccretionary complex (SCY-1) contains much more abundant LateArchean and Early Proterozoic (2700–1700 Ma) zircons than the LateJurassic–earliest Cretaceous (SCT-5) and Late Cretaceous (SCT-1) accre-tionary complexes (Fig. 5c) (Yui et al., 2012). As zircon age spectra of theLate Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous accretionary com-plexes are similar to those of modern river sediments in the southernpart of the South China Block, siliciclastic sediments were evidentlysourced from the South China Block and deposited in Taiwan alongthe East Asian margin during the Late Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous andLate Cretaceous (Yui et al., 2012). The significant increase of the EarlyProterozoic zircons in the mid-Cretaceous accretionary complex wasascribed to the continental uplift and erosion of the North China Blockduring the Triassic South China–North China collision. It is very hardto understand this interpretation. Why did the Triassic collisionalevent influence the deposition along the East Asian margin only in themid-Cretaceous not in the Late Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous? Moreover,the North China Block experienced a regional extensional event duringthe Early Cretaceous and most previously uplifted areas in the blockbecame sedimentary basins (Zhu et al., 2012; Lin et al., 2013).

4.2. New interpretations

Themodel of theOkhotomorsk-East Asia collision during 100–89Maand the Okhotomorsk-Siberia collision during 79–77 Ma (Figs. 6–9)provides a possible explanation for the abundant Late Archean to EarlyProterozoic detrital zircons in the Cretaceous sandstones in Kamchatka,SW Japan, and Taiwan (Fig. 5). First, it is presumed here that theOkhotomorsk Block is composed of the Late Archean and Early Protero-zoic basement. A process of how old zircons were delivered from theOkhotomorsk to these places is described as follows.

During most of the Early Cretaceous, the exposed Mesozoic arcbatholith belts near the Asian margin were the main sources (Isozakiet al., 2010; Aoki et al., 2012; Yui et al., 2012), sediments accumulatedin forearc basins (e.g. JC8) and accretionary complexes (e.g. JC6 andSCT-5) along the East Asian margin mainly contained the Mesozoiczircons (Fig. 5b, c).

In a period of several million years before the Okhotomorsk Blockcollided with East Asia (Fig. 6), siliciclastic sediments accumulatedalong the East Asian margin had two sources, the Eurasia Plate and theapproaching Okhotomorsk Block. The exposed Mesozoic arc batholithbelts near the Asian margin still provided the Mesozoic zircons, butthe approaching of the Okhotomorsk Block suddenly resulted in thesignificant increase of Archean and Early Proterozoic zircons in accre-tionary complexes. The protolith of SCY-1 in Taiwan was possiblydeposited in this scenario (Fig. 5c).

During the Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision (Fig. 7), the westernOkhotomorsk Block margin which was probably covered by siliciclasticsediments accumulated before the Late Cretaceous was subductedbelow East Asia. It is proposed here that the protolith of the meta-sandstone sample BK11 of the Sanbagawa Belt is possibly the sandstonedeposited along theOkhotomorsk Blockmargin during the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Figs. 2b and 5b). If it had been eroded from the LateJurassic–earliest Cretaceous accretionary complex as generally thought

(e.g. Isozaki and Itaya, 1990; Aoki et al., 2011; Itaya et al., 2011), it shouldnot have contained so abundant Proterozoic zircons. If it had beendeposited just before the Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision as SCY-1 inTaiwan was (Fig. 5c), besides the Proterozoic zircons, it should alsohave contained some Early Cretaceous zircons. In addition, it is sug-gested here that the protolith of the meta-sandstone QM is the EarlyCretaceous accretionary complex sandstone (e.g. Isozaki and Itaya,1990; Okamoto et al., 2004; Aoki et al., 2011; Itaya et al., 2011) anddoes not have a link to the Okhotomorsk Block (Figs. 2c and 5b), mainlybecause only one Proterozoic zircon was found from many dated zir-cons in the sample (Okamoto et al., 2004).

After the Okhotomorsk Block moved away from the NE-strikingAsianmargin (Fig. 8), for a short period of severalmillion years, Archeanand Early Proterozoic detrital grains were still a relatively importantcomponent in the rapidly accumulated accretionary complexes. Theymainly came from numerous rock fragments which were broken fromthe Okhotomorsk Block and were left behind the block. Therefore,a certain number of Archean and Proterozoic zircons were detectedin the Late Cretaceous Shimanto accretionary complex in SW Japan(09405-4 and BK12) (Fig. 5b) and in the Late Cretaceous accretionarycomplex in Taiwan (SCT-1) (Fig. 5c). However, because theOkhotomorskBlock left the East Asia margin completely, its influence graduallydisappeared. Few Proterozoic zircons were found in the sample NK1and Proterozoic zircons are not present in sands accumulated in recentrivers in Japan (KRB-1) (Nakama et al., 2010).

During the Campanian, the Okhotomorsk Block collidedwith Siberia(Fig. 9). As a part of the giant block, siliciclastic sediments accumulatedalong the easternOkhotomorskmargin during the Early Cretaceous alsoarrived at Northeast Asia. Part of them is exposed in Kamchatka andis called the Sredinny Massif (Fig. 1). Therefore, it is very easy tounderstand why the Sredinny Massif contains so abundant Archeanand Proterozoic zircons (Fig. 5a). Regarding the Ordovician to EarlyCretaceous zircons (460–96 Ma) in the Sredinny Massif, it is suggestedhere that they were not necessarily delivered from the OkhotomorskBlock itself. They could come from the East Asian margin during theOkhotomorsk–East Asia collision (Fig. 7). The uplifted accretionarycomplexes could provide zircons of various Paleozoic–Mesozoic agesto the Okhotomorsk Block (Fig. 5a, b).

5. Evolution of the Sanbagawa HP metamorphic belt

There has been a major debate on the age of peakmetamorphism ofthe Sanbagawa Belt in SW Japan (Fig. 2). It has been generally acceptedthat the peak metamorphism took place around 120 Ma (e.g. Isozakiand Itaya, 1990; Aoki et al., 2011; Itaya et al., 2011). One supportingevidence is the whole rock Rb–Sr dating of eight samples in centralShikoku, showing an age of 116 ± 10 Ma (Minamishin et al., 1979).Another is the U–Pb dating of detrital zircons in a meta-sandstone(sample QM) intercalated with the Iratsu eclogite in central Shikoku,which yields a metamorphic age of 130–110 Ma (Okamoto et al.,2004) (Figs. 2b and 5b). However, it was suggested that these studieslack a clear link between the ages and metamorphic history (Endoet al., 2009;Wallis and Endo, 2010). A Lu–Hf dating of the Seba eclogitein central Shikoku and the Kotsu eclogite in eastern Shikoku provided apeak metamorphic age of 88–89 Ma (Wallis et al., 2009) (Fig. 2b).Another Lu–Hf dating of the Iratsu eclogite in central Shikoku yieldedan age of 116 Ma (Endo et al., 2009) (Fig. 2b), compatible to the zirconage (Okamoto et al., 2004). Based on geochronological and petrologicalstudies of the Iratsu eclogite, Endo et al. (2009) proposed that theeclogite unit experienced a pre-eclogite facies metamorphism at 550–650 °C and 1 GPa at about 116 Ma, and an eclogite facies metamor-phism at 600–650 °C and 2 GPa at about 89 Ma. Furthermore, theseauthors provided a possible scenario for the evolution of the SanbagawaBelt that the Iratsu unit was subducted before the Seba unit and theybecame juxtaposed during the prograde eclogite metamorphism.

110 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Based on the geochronological and petrological characteristics of theSanbagawa Belt (Okamoto et al., 2004; Endo et al., 2009; Wallis et al.,2009), an evolution of the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt in the newtectonic framework (Figs. 6–9) is provided here. During the EarlyCretaceous, accretionary sediments along the East Asia margin werepartially eroded and subducted with the Izanagi Plate, and experienceda pre-eclogite facies metamorphism during 130–110 Ma (Minamishinet al., 1979; Okamoto et al., 2004; Endo et al., 2009). During theOkhotomorsk–East Asia collision in 100–89 Ma (Fig. 7), the westernOkhotomorsk Block margin was subducted below East Asia. In the sub-duction zone, the crustal rocks offscraped from the Okhotomorsk Blockwere juxtaposed with those accretionary sediments and oceanic rockswhich underwent a metamorphism during 130–110 Ma, and were to-gether subducted to the upper mantle level (Endo et al., 2009). Atabout 89 Ma, just before the slab breakoff from the OkhotomorskBlock, the subducted materials underwent the peak eclogite faciesmetamorphism (Wallis et al., 2009). During 89–85 Ma, Sanbagawahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks were rapidly exhumed through theductile shear zone at the lower crust and upper mantle level betweenthe Okhotomorsk Block and East Asia (Fig. 8). In summary, the new tec-tonic evolutionmodel of the Sanbagawa Belt involves twometamorphicevents, a pre-eclogite facies metamorphism of part of Sanbagawa rocksin an oceanic subduction setting during 130–110 Ma, and a progressiveeclogite metamorphism of Sanbagawa rocks as a whole in a continentalsubduction setting, culminating at about 89 Ma.

The Sanbagawa metamorphic belt is interpreted as a mingledproduct of pre-eclogite-facies metamorphic rocks previously offscrapedduring the Early Cretaceous oceanic subduction and rocks detachedfrom the subducting Okhotomorsk crust. The protolith of the meta-sandstone QM near the Iratsu body is the Early Cretaceous accretionarysandstone (Figs. 2b and 5b), which together with other subductedoceanic rocks underwent a pre-eclogite facies metamorphism during130–110 Ma (Okamoto et al., 2004; Ota et al., 2004; Endo et al., 2009;Utsunomiya et al., 2011). The garnet–granulite relicts in the Iratsubody suggest a pre-Sanbagawa metamorphism under a geothermand lith-pressure of a thick crust of 15–30 km (Ota et al., 2004;Utsunomiya et al., 2011). They are interpreted here to have beenoffscraped from the ancient crystalline basement of the OkhotomorskBlock during the subduction of the Okhotomorsk below East Asia. Thepelitic schists from the surrounding rocks and pelitic gneisses fromthe marginal zone of the Iratsu body are characterized by negative εNd(t) value (~−5), suggesting a source from an old continental crust(Utsunomiya et al., 2011). It is interpreted here that their peliticprotoliths were deposited along the Okhotomorsk Block margin beforethe Late Cretaceous and were offscraped from the Okhotomorsk Blockduring the continental subduction. They were unlikely sourced fromthe South China Block as Utsunomiya et al. (2011) suggested, becauseU–Pb dating of detrital zircons from the Paleozoic to Cenozoic sand-stones in SW Japan indicate that siliciclastic flux from two Chineseancient cratons was very small (Isozaki et al., 2010) (Fig. 5b). In addi-tion, as mentioned above, the meta-sandstone BK11 of the SanbagawaBelt was possibly deposited along the Okhotomorsk Block marginduring the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Figs. 2b and 5b). The inter-pretation for origins of Sanbagawa metamorphic rocks is consistentwith the continental collision model suggesting that in continentalcollision orogens, ultra-high-pressure rocks may mingle with the low-grade metamorphic rocks offscraped in the early stage of subduction,forming tectonic mélanges (Zheng, 2012).

6. Discussions

6.1. The Okhotomorsk Block before the Late Cretaceous

The area of the Okhotomorsk Block was reduced after collision withEast Asia, compression against NE Japan, and collisionwith Siberia in theLate Cretaceous (Figs. 6–9), and collisionwith Sakhalin Island during the

Paleogene (Otsuki, 1992; Maruyama et al., 1997; Taira, 2001). Prior tothe Late Cretaceous, it may have been as big as either the SouthChina Block or the North China Block (Fig. 10a, b). In addition, abundantLate Archean to Early Proterozoic detrital zircons in the Cretaceoussandstones in Kamchatka, SW Japan, and Taiwan suggest that theOkhotomorsk Block formed during the Late Archean and EarlyProterozoic, with a similar age to the North China Block (Zhao et al.,2005). Therefore, this giant and old craton merits careful considerationin future plate reconstructions.

It is presumed here that the Okhotomorsk Block was surrounded bypassive margins and located in the interior of the Izanagi Plate beforethe Late Cretaceous (Fig. 10a, b). Van der Meer et al. (2012) suggestedthat the major intra-oceanic subduction zone Telkhinia separated theearly Mesozoic Panthalassa Ocean into a western realm, the PontusOcean, and an eastern realm, the Thalassa Ocean, and several Asian exoticterranes were on the western margin of the overriding Thalassa oceanicplate (Fig. 10a). However, it is unlikely that the Okhotomorsk Block waslocated at the margin of the Izanagi Plate, the northwestern part of theThalassa Ocean (Van der Meer et al., 2012), during the early Mesozoic.The high-velocity zone below the Yellow Sea and SE China (Huang andZhao, 2006) (Fig. 7a) indicates a remnant of the oceanic slab detachedfrom the Okhotomorsk Block. The Early Cretaceous magmatic arc suitesextensively distributed in SE Chinawere related to thewestward subduc-tion of the Izanagi oceanic lithosphere (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierreet al., 1997) before the collision of the Okhotomorsk Blockwith East Asia.

It is mentioned previously that the protolith of the meta-sandstoneBK11 of the Sanbagawa Belt was possibly deposited along theOkhotomorsk Block margin during the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous(Fig. 5b). Amajor zircon age peak of 156–181 Ma is shown in the sampleBK11 (Aoki et al., 2012). Itwas suggested that substantial volcanic andhy-drothermal activities took place near the Pacific Plate in theMiddle Juras-sic when the Pacific just formed (Bartolini and Larson, 2001; Kopperset al., 2003; Tivey et al., 2005) (Fig. 10a, b). The coincidence may implythat the group of the Middle Jurassic zircons in the Okhotomorsk Blockwas related to the intense intraplate magmatism in the paleo-PacificOcean during the Middle Jurassic, and the block was not very far awayfrom the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix and Izanagi plates.

During the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous, owing to the fast expansionof the Pacific Plate (Bartolini and Larson, 2001; Smith, 2003), the IzanagiPlate moved northwestward with continental blocks or island arcswhich were in the interior of the plate or at its margins (Engebretsonet al., 1985; Smith, 2003; Norton, 2007; Van der Meer et al., 2012)(Fig. 10a, b). A series of Asian exotic terranes including the SouthKitakamiBelt, Kurosegawa Belt, and Kolyma–Omolon Block which were on thewestern margin of the Izanagi Plate collided with the East Asian marginduring the Late Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous (Otsuki, 1992; Stone et al.,2003; Charvet, 2013). During about 100–89 Ma, the northwestward-moving Okhotomorsk Block collided with the East Asian margin(Fig. 10c).

6.2. Constraints on the plate reorganization of the Northwest Pacific duringthe CNS

The new tectonicmodel (Figs. 6–9) establishes process relationshipsbetween onshore geological records and current ideas regarding theplate configuration of the paleo-Pacific Ocean (Engebretson et al.,1985; Smith, 2003; Norton, 2007; Seton et al., 2012). As it is primarilybased on geological records in East Asia, in turn, the model providesconstraints for reconstructing the paleo-Pacific during the CNS (Fig. 10).

The formation of NW-SE-striking sinistral and dextral strike-slipfault systems and a series of NE-SW-trending compressional struc-tures between these systems in East Asia during the indentationphase of 100–89 Ma (Fig. 7a) suggests that the Izanagi Plate movedapproximately northwestward during and just before this period(Fig. 10b, c), consistent with plate constructions of the paleo-PacificOcean (Smith, 2003; Norton, 2007). It was suggested that a global-scale

SCB

NCB

Tethys

Izanagi

Phoenix

Farallon

Pacific

ThalassaOcean

Eurasia

KO

SK

K

SCB

NCB

Farallon

Pacific

Eurasia

SCB

NCB

Farallon

Pacific

Izanagi

Phoenix

SiberiaSiberia

OKIzanagi

(a) LateTriassic-Early Jurassic (b) Early Cretaceous

Phoenix

Farallon

ThalassaOcean

Tethys

PontusOcean

Telkhinia

SCB

NCB

SK

K

KO

(c) 100-89 Ma (d) 79-77 Ma

OK

OKIzanagi

OK

Eurasia

Fig. 10. Schematic tectonic reconstruction of the paleo-Pacific Ocean (a) during the Late Triassic–Early Jurassic (modified from Van der Meer et al., 2012), (b) during the Early Cretaceous(modified from Smith, 2003, 2007; Seton et al., 2012; Van der Meer et al., 2012), (c) during 100–89 Ma (modified from Smith, 2003, 2007; Seton et al., 2012), and (d) during 79–77 Ma(modified from Smith, 2003, 2007; Norton, 2007). Yellow zigzag schematically shows the spreading ridge. Red lines with triangles denote subduction zones or presumed subdcutionzones. K: Kurosegawa Belt; KO: Kolyma-Omolon Block; NCB: North China Block; OK: Okhotomorsk Block; SCB: South China Block; SK: South Kitakami Belt.

111Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

plate reorganization event occurred at 105–100 Ma probably resultedfrom the eastern Gondwanaland subduction cessation (Matthews et al.,2012). However, the compressional records in East Asia (Graham et al.,2001; Meng et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2003; Choi and Lee, 2011) whichwere used to support the hypothesis of the global-scale event arereinterpreted here as products of the continental collision of theOkhotomorsk Block with East Asia during 100–89 Ma (Fig. 7a).

The consistence between the onset of the northeastward obliquemotion of theOkhotomorsk Block along the East Asianmargin at around89 Ma and a rapid change of about 20° from northwestward to north-northwestward in the direction of Pacific-Izanagi motion between 90and 84 Ma (Norton, 2007) (Figs. 7a, 8a, and 10c, d) supports the sugges-tion that a significant reorganization of the paleo-Pacific Ocean occurredat around 90 Ma (Norton, 2007). One hypothesis to explore in thisregard is that the Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision during 100–89 Maslowed down the northwestward motion of the Izanagi Plate(Fig. 10c), while slab pull forces, originating from subduction of theIzanagi Plate beneath the Siberian margin, eventually redirected theIzanagi Plate from northwestward to north-northwestward motion(Fig. 10d). In addition, the northward motion of the OkhotomorskBlock during 89–77 Ma implies that the scenario that the Izanagi Platemoved in a westward direction throughout the Cretaceous (Setonet al., 2012) is possibly unrealistic.

Based on the new tectonic model here, the speed of theOkhotomorsk Block can be estimated during 89–77 Ma. In the 12 mil-lion years, it traveled about 2700 km in a N–S direction (Figs. 7–9, and

10c, d), indicating an average speed of 22.5 cm/yr. Taking into accountthe low velocities associated with continental collision during the last2 million years, this estimated speed is entirely consistent with esti-mates of 23.3–23.8 cm/yr, the speed of the north-northwestward-moving Izanagi Plate during the early Late Cretaceous (Engebretsonet al., 1985). The rapidly northward-moving Izanagi Plate during theearly Late Cretaceous resulted in the large-scale northward motion ofthe Early Cretaceous oceanic crustwhichwas rapidly subducted and ac-creted along the Asian margin during the Campanian time (Taira et al.,1988; Taira, 2001).

6.3. The Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision and the Early Cretaceous andCenozoic extensional events in East China

It is well known that extensional events widely occurred in EastChina, in the Early Cretaceous, and in the latest Cretaceous–Cenozoic,respectively (Watson et al., 1987; Ren et al., 2002; Zhu et al., 2012). Inthe last decade, Chinese andWestern geologists have paid much atten-tion to the Early Cretaceous cratonic destruction of the North ChinaBlock and numerous studies have suggested that extensional structuresincluding metamorphic core complexes (e.g. Wang et al., 2011), exten-sional basins (e.g. Meng, 2003), and syntectonic plutons (e.g. Wu et al.,2005) formed in East Chinamainly between 140 and 110 Ma (Lin et al.,2013). The latest Cretaceous–Cenozoic episode began after 80 Ma withthe main extensional period in the Paleogene (Ren et al., 2002). Manyextensional basins filled with Cenozoic sediments of thousands of

112 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

meters developed in East China and have become important oil-producing regions. 40Ar–39Ar dating of basalts in the lower part of theUpper Cretaceous Wangshi Formation in the Jiaolai Basin (JB) showsan age of 73.5 ± 0.3 Ma, indicating the onset of this extensional episodein the eastern North China Block (J. Yan et al., 2003) (Fig. 1). It is clearthat there was a long gap of at least 30 million years between thesetwo extensional events (Watson et al., 1987; Ren et al., 2002).

Compared to above-mentioned two extensional events, fewerstudies, so far, have been given to the early Late Cretaceous evolutionin East China. The main reason possibly is the lack of objects of study.There was a magmatic hiatus in East China during the early LateCretaceous (Xu, 2001; Menzies et al., 2007). In East China, except inthe SE China coast (Fig. 8a) (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierre et al., 1997),few igneous rocks formed during the early Late Cretaceous have beenfound. Extensive areas, except the Songliao Basin (SLB), Subei-YellowSea Basin (SYB), and Jianghan Basin (JHB), becameuplifted and erosion-al areas during the early Late Cretaceous (Chen, 2000) (Figs. 7a and 8a).Moreover, most of the early Late Cretaceous sediments in the Subei-Yellow Sea Basin and Jianghan Basin have been deeply buried by thesediments accumulated in the latest Cretaceous–Cenozoic extensionalepisode (Li and Lü, 2002). Therefore, the evolution of East China inthis periodwas generally and simply described as a part of a long exten-sional episode of the Late Mesozoic–Cenozoic time related to a succes-sive oceanic subduction of the paleo-Pacific Ocean (e.g. Watson et al.,1987; Ren et al., 2002; Xu, 2007; Zhu et al., 2012). Few studies havediscussed themechanisms of themagmatic hiatus and regional upliftingin East China during the early Late Cretaceous.

The Okhotomorsk–East Asia collision proposed here provides aninterpretation for the magmatic hiatus (Xu, 2001; Menzies et al., 2007)and regional uplifting (Charvet et al., 1994; Lapierre et al., 1997; Chen,2000; Ratschbacher et al., 2003) (Figs. 3 and 7a) in East China duringthe early Late Cretaceous. The new model clearly suggests that theEarly Cretaceous extension and the latest Cretaceous–Cenozoic exten-sion in East China was not a successive event, and they were possiblycaused by different mechanisms (Cope and Graham, 2007). Furtherstudies are needed to find if there was a direct relationship betweenthis collisional event along the East Asian margin during the early LateCretaceous and the ending of the Early Cretaceous extensional event inEast Asia. It is suggested here that the regional uplifting and crustalthickening in East Asia during the Okhotomorsk-East Asia collisionin 100–89 Ma (Fig. 7a) probably provided a basis for the latestCretaceous-Cenozoic extension in East China, although they werenot necessarily the main controlling factors.

7. Conclusions

Based on data from stratigraphy, thermochronology, structuralgeology, petrology, geochemistry, and geophysics in different parts ofEast Asia, a new tectonic model at the East Asian margin during theearly Late Cretaceous is set forth, here. The key elements of this modelare the major collision of the Okhotomorsk Block with East Asia during100–89 Ma and the oblique strike-slip motion of the OkhotomorskBlock along the NE-striking Asian margin during 89–83 Ma. Collisionand indentation of the Okhotomorsk Blockwithin the East Asianmarginresulted in regional NW–SE shortening and orogenic exhumation inEast Asia, and a progressive eclogite metamorphism of Sanbagawarocks in Southwest Japan. The northeastward oblique motion of theOkhotomorsk formed a significant sinistral continental transformboundary between the Eurasian Plate and Izanagi Plate, similar to theSan Andreas fault system in California. Sanbagawa metamorphic rockswere rapidly exhumed through the several-kilometer wide ductileshear zone at the lower crust and upper mantle level, and accretionarycomplexes were subdivided into narrow and subparallel belts bythe upper crustal strike-slip fault system. The departure of theOkhotomorsk from the NE-striking Asian margin led to the occurrenceof an extensional setting and tilting of previously formed crustal

structures, triggering intense magmatic activities along the margin.During 79–77 Ma, the Okhotomorsk collided with Siberia in NortheastAsia.

The new tectonic model spatially and temporally connects maingeological events occurred in East Asia during the early Late Cretaceous,and establishes process relationships between onshore geologicalrecords and the plate configuration of the paleo-Pacific Ocean. It pro-vides a basis for synthesizing diverse aspects of the geological evolutionof neighboring areas of East Asia during the Late Cretaceous: orogenesis,strike-slip faulting, basin evolution, paleoclimatic change, accretion,magmatism, metamorphism, etc. In themean time, it suggests a perfectexample of ancient continental transform boundaries. Of course,detailed studies in local areas are much needed to test and refine themodel in the future.

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Projects ZC9850290129 andWK2080000026. I thank my colleagues Gerald Bryant, Fang Huang,Wei Leng, Johnny MacLean, Yingming Sheng, and Yongfei Zheng fortheir useful comments. Critical reviews by Jacques Charvet, CariJohnson, and an anonymous reviewer assisted greatly in improvingthe manuscript.

References

Adachi, Y., Wallis, S., 2008. Ductile deformation and development of andalusite micro-structures in the Nukata area: constraints on the metamorphism and tectonics ofthe Ryoke belt. Island Arc 17, 41–56.

Ando, H., 2003. Stratigraphic correlation of Upper Cretaceous to Paleocene forearc basinsediments in Northeast Japan: cyclic sedimentation and basin evolution. Journal ofAsian Earth Sciences 21, 921–935.

Aoki, K., Maruyama, S., Isozaki, Y., Otoh, S., Yanai, S., 2011. Recognition of the Shimanto HPmetamorphic belt within the traditional Sanbagawa HP metamorphic belt: new per-spectives of the Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonics in Japan. Journal of Asian EarthSciences 42, 355–369.

Aoki, K., Isozaki, Y., Yamamoto, S., Maki, K., Yokoyama, T., Hirata, T., 2012. Tectonic erosionin a Pacifi c-type orogen: detrital zircon response to Cretaceous tectonics in Japan.Geology 40, 1087–1090.

Baes, M., Govers, R., Wortel, R., 2011. Subduction initiation along the inherited weaknesszone at the edge of a slab: insights from numerical models. Geophysical Journal Inter-national 184, 991–1008.

Bartolini, A., Larson, R.L., 2001. Pacific microplate and the Pangea supercontinent in theEarly to Middle Jurassic. Geology 29, 735–738.

Bijwaard, H., Spakman, W., Engdahl, E.R., 1998. Closing the gap between regional andglobal travel-time tomography. Journal of Geophysical Research 103, 30055–30078.

Bindeman, I.N., Vinogradov, V.I., Valley, J.W., Wooden, J.L., Natal'in, B.A., 2002. Archeanprotolith and accretion of crust in Kamchatka: SHRIMP dating of zircons fromSredinny and Ganal massifs. Journal of Geology 110, 271–289.

Cai, M., He, L., Liu, G., Wu, D., Huang, H., 2006. SHRIMP zircon U–Pb dating of the intrusiverocks in the Dachang tin-polymetallic ore field, Guangxi and their geological signifi-cance. (in Chinese with English abstract) Geological Review 52, 409–414.

Charvet, J., 2013. Late Paleozoic–Mesozoic tectonic evolution of SW Japan: a review—

reappraisal of the accretionary orogeny and revalidation of the collisional model.Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 72, 88–104.

Charvet, J., Lapierre, H., Yu, Y., 1994. Geodynamic significance of the Mesozoic volcanismof southeastern China. Journal of Southeast Asian Earth Sciences 9, 387–396.

Chekhovich, V.D., Sukhov, A.N., Kononov, M.V., Palandzhyan, S.A., 2009. Geodynamics ofthe northwestern sector of the pacific mobile belt in the Late Cretaceous–EarlyPaleogene. Geotectonics 43, 111–132.

Chen, P., 2000. Paleoenvironmental changes during the Cretaceous in eastern China.In: Okada, H., Mateer, N.J. (Eds.), Cretaceous Environments of Asia. Elsevier Science,pp. 81–90.

Chen, Y.X., Chen, W.J., 1997. Mesozoic volcanic rocks inWestern Liaoning Province and itsadjacent areas: geochronology, geochemistry, and tectonic setting. Seismology Press,Beijing 279 pp. (in Chinese).

Choi, T., Lee, Y.I.L., 2011. Thermal histories of Cretaceous basins in Korea: implications forresponse of the East Asian continentalmargin to subduction of the Paleo-Pacific plate.Island Arc 20, 371–385.

Cogné, J.P., Kravchinsky, V.A., Halim, N., Hankard, F., 2005. Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceousclosure of the Mongol-Okhotsk Ocean demonstrated by new Mesozoicpalaeomagnetic results from the Trans-Baikal area (SE Siberia). Geophysical JournalInternational 163, 813–832.

Cope, T., Graham, S.A., 2007. Upper crustal response to Mesozoic tectonism in westernLiaoning, North China, and implications for lithospheric delamination. In: Zhai,M.G., Windley, B.F. Kusky T.M., Meng Q. (Eds.), Mesozoic Sub-continental Lithospher-ic Thinning under Eastern Asia. Geological Society, London. Special Publications 280,201–222.

113Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Cui, J., Liu, X., Dong, S., Hu, J., 2012. U–Pb and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology of the Tongbaicomplex, central China: implications for Cretaceous exhumation and lateral extrusionof the Tongbai–Dabie HP/UHP terrane. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 47, 155–170.

Enami, M., Mizukami, T., Yokoyama, K., 2004. Metamorphic evolution of garnet-bearingultramafic rocks from the Gongen area, Sanbagawa belt, Japan. Journal of Metamor-phic Geology 22, 1–15.

Endo, S., Wallis, S.R., Hirata, T., Anczkiewicz, R., Platt, J.P., Thirlwall, M., Asahara, Y., 2009.Age and earlymetamorphic history of the Sanbagawa belt: Lu–Hf and P–T constraintsfrom the Western Iratsu eclogite. Journal of Metamorphic Geology 27, 371–384.

Engebretson, D.C., Cox, A., Gordon, R.G., 1985. Relative motions between oceanic andcontinental plates in the Pacific Basin. Geological Society of America Special Paper,206, pp. 1–58.

Enkelmann, E., Ratschbacher, L., Jonckheere, R., Nestler, R., Fleischer, M., Gloaguen, R.,Hacker, B.R., Zhang, Y.Q., Ma, Y.S., 2006. Cenozoic exhumation and deformation ofnortheastern Tibet and the Qinling: is Tibetan lower crustal flow diverging aroundthe Sichuan Basin? Geological Society of America Bulletin 118, 651–671.

Feng, Z., Jia, C., Xie, X., Zhang, S., Feng, Z., Cross, T.A., 2010. Tectonostratigraphic units andstratigraphic sequences of the nonmarine Songliao basin, northeast China. BasinResearch 22, 79–95.

Gorbatov, A., Widiyantoro, S., Fukao, Y., Gordeev, E., 2000. Signature of remnant slabs inthe North Pacific from P-wave tomography. Geophysical Journal International 142,27–36.

Graham, S.A., Hendrix, M.S., Johnson, C.L., Badamgarav, D., Badarch, G., Amory, J., Porter,M., Barsbold, R., Webb, L.E., Hacker, B.R., 2001. Sedimentary record and tectonicimplications of Mesozoic rifting in southeast Mongolia. Geological Society of AmericaBulletin 113, 1560–1579.

Grimmer, J.C., Jonckheere, R., Enkelmann, E., Ratschbacher, L., Hacker, B.R., Blythe, A.,Wagner, G.A., Liu, S., Dong, S., 2002. Cretaceous–Tertiary history of the southernTan-Lu fault zone: apatite fission track and structural constraints from the DabieShan. Tectonophysics 359, 225–253.

Guillot, S., Hattori, K., Agard, P., Schwartz, S., Vidal, O., 2009. Exhumation processes inoceanic and continental subduction contexts: a review. In: Lallemand, S., Funiciello,F. (Eds.), Subduction Zone Geodynamics. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg,pp. 175–205.

Hada, S., Ishii, K., Landis, C.A., Aitchison, J., Yoshikura, S., 2001. Kurosegawa Terrane inSoutwest Japan: disrupted remnants of a Gondwana-derived terrane. GondwanaResearch 4, 27–38.

Hall, R., 2002. Cenozoic geological and plate tectonic evolution of SE Asia and the SWPacific: computer-based reconstructions, model and animations. Journal of AsianEarth Sciences 20, 353–432.

Hall, C.E., Gurnis, M., Sdrolias, M., Lavier, L.L., Muller, R.D., 2003. Catastrophic initiation ofsubduction following forced convergence across fracture zones. Earth and PlanetaryScience Letters 212, 15–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00242-5.

Hara, H., Kimura, K., 2008. Metamorphic and cooling history of the Shimanto accretionarycomplex, Kyushu, Southwest Japan: implications for the timing of out-of-sequencethrusting. Island Arc 17, 546–559.

Hasegawa, T., Pratt, L.M., Maeda, H., Shigeta, Y., Okamoto, T., Kase, T., Uemura, K., 2003.Upper Cretaceous stable carbon isotope stratigraphy ofterrestrial organic matterfrom Sakhalin, Russian Far East: a proxy for the isotopic composition ofpaleoatmospheric CO2. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 189,97–115.

Hasegawa, H., Tada, R., Ichinnorov, N., Minjin, C., 2009. Lithostratigraphy and depositionalenvironments of the Upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation, Ulan Nuur basin,southern Mongolia, and its paleoclimatic implication. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences35, 13–26.

Henstock, T.J., Levander, A., Hole, J.A., 1997. Deformation in the Lower Crust of the SanAndreas Fault System in Northern California. Science 278, 650–653.

Hill, D.P., Eaton, J.P., Jones, L.M., 1990. Seismicity, 1980–86. In: Wallace, R.E. (Ed.), The SanAndreas Fault System, California. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper,1515, pp. 115–151.

Holdsworth, R.E., van Diggelen, E.W.E., Spiers, C.J., de Bresser, J.H.P.,Walker, R.J., Bowen, L.,2011. Fault rocks from the SAFOD core samples: implications for weakening atshallow depths along the San Andreas Fault, California. Journal of Structural Geology33, 132–144.

Hourigan, J.K., Akinin, V.V., 2004. Tectonic and chronostratigraphic implications of new40Ar/39Ar geochronology and geochemistry of the Arman and Maltan-Ola volcanicfields, Okhotsk–Chukotka volcanic belt, northeastern Russia. Geological Society ofAmerica Bulletin 116, 637–654.

Hu, S., Kohn, B.P., Raza, A., Wang, J., Gleadow, A.J.W., 2006. Late Mesozoic and Cenozoicthermotectonic evolution along a transect from the north China craton through theQinling orogen into the Yangtze craton, central China. Tectonics 25, TC6009.

Hu, G., Hu, W., Cao, J., Yao, S., Xie, X., Li, Y., Liu, Y., Wang, X., 2012. Deciphering theEarly Cretaceous transgression in coastal southeastern China: constraints based onpetrography, paleontology and geochemistry. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,Palaeoecology 317–318, 182–195.

Huang, J., Zhao, D., 2006. High-resolution mantle tomography of China and surroundingregions. Journal of Geophysical Research 111, B09305.

Hwang, B.H., Ernst, W.G., McWilliams, M., Yang, K., 2008. Geometric model of conjugatefaulting in the Gyeongsang Basin, southeast Korea. Tectonics 27, TC6015.

Ishida, K., Kozai, T., Park, S.O., Mitsugi, T., 2003. Gravel bearing radiolaria as tracers forerosional events: a review of the status of recent research in SW Japan and Korea.Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 21, 909–920.

Isozaki, Y., 1996. Anatomy and genesis of a subduction-related orogen: a new view ofgeotectonic subdivision and evolution of the Japanese Islands. Island Arc 5, 289–320.

Isozaki, Y., Itaya, T., 1990. Chronology of Sanbagawa metamorphism. Journal of Metamor-phic Geology 8, 401–411.

Isozaki, Y., Aoki, K., Nakama, T., Yanai, S., 2010. New insight into a subduction relatedorogen: a reappraisal of the geotectonic framework and evolution of the JapaneseIslands. Gondwana Research 18, 82–105.

Itaya, T., Tsujimori, T., Liou, J.G., 2011. Evolution of the Sanbagawa and Shimanto high-pressure belts in SW Japan: insights from K–Ar (Ar–Ar) geochronology. Journal ofAsian Earth Sciences 42, 1075–1090.

Ito, T., Kojima, Y., Kodaira, S., Sato, H., Kaneda, Y., Iwasaki, T., Kurashimo, E., Tsumura, N.,Fujiwara, A., Miyauchi, T., Hirata, N., Harder, S., Miller, K., Murata, A., Yamakita, S.,Onishi, M., Abe, S., Sato, T., Ikawa, T., 2009. Crustal structure of southwest Japan,revealed by the integrated seismic experiment Southwest Japan 2002. Tectonophysics472, 124–134.

Itoh, Y., Amano, K., Danhara, T., 2000. Paleomagnetism, rock magnetism, and fission trackdating of the Kurihashi Granodiorite in northeast Japan: evidence for a Cretaceoushydrothermal event and differential rotation along the eastern Eurasian margin.Journal of Geophysical Research 105, 13519–13532.

Johnson, C.L., 2004. Polyphase evolution of the East Gobi basin: sedimentary and structuralrecords ofMesozoic–Cenozoic intraplate deformation inMongolia. Basin Research 16,79–99.

Jolivet, L., Cadet, J.P., Lalevée, F., 1988. Mesozoic evolution of Northeast Asia and thecollision of the Okhotsk microcontinent. Tectonophysics 149, 89–109.

Kamp, P.J.J., Takemura, K., 1993. Thermo-tectonichistory of Ryoke Basement inHohi volcanic zone, northeast Kyushu, Japan: constraints from fission trackthermochronology. Island Arc 2, 213–227.

Kanaori, Y., 1990. Late Mesozoic–Cenozoic strike-slip and block rotation in the inner beltof Southwest Japan. Tectonophysics 177, 381–399.

Kato, K., Saka, Y., 2003. Kurosegawa Terrane as a transform fault zone in Southwest Japan.Gondwana Research 6, 669–686.

Kirillova, G.L., 2003. Late Mesozoic–Cenozoic sedimentary basins of active continentalmargin of Southeast Russia: paleogeography, tectonics, and coal–oil–gas presence.Marine and Petroleum Geology 20, 385–397.

Koppers, A.A.P., Staudigel, H., Duncan, R.A., 2003. High-resolution 40Ar/39Ar dating of theoldest oceanic basement basalts in thewestern Pacific basin. Geochemistry, Geophysics,Geosystems 4, 8914. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003GC000574.

Kravchinsky, V.A., Sorokin, A.A., Courtillot, V., 2002. Paleomagnetism of Paleozoic andMesozoic sediments from the southernmargin of Mongol-Okhotsk ocean, far easternRussia. Journal of Geophysical Research 107 (B10), 2253. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000672.

Lapierre, H., Jahn, B.M., Charvet, J., Yu, Y.W., 1997. Mesozoic magmatism in ZhejiangProvince and its relation with the tectonic activities in SE China. Tectonophysics274, 321–338.

Li, G., Lü, M., 2002. Atlas of Chinese Petroliferous Basins. (in Chinese) Petroleum IndustryPress, Beijing, 492 pp.

Li, X., Song, Y., 2010. Meso-Cenozoic uplift and exhumation of the Lüliangshan Mountains:constraint from fission track thermochronology. Acta Geologica Sinica 84, 296–305(English Edition).

Li, X., Gong, G., Yang, X., Zeng, Q., 2010. Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic exhumation of the Yanjiarea, NE China: constraints from fission track thermochronology. Island Arc 19,120–133.

Li, X., Yang, X., Xia, B., Gong, G., Shan, Y., Zeng, Q., Li, W., Sun, W., 2011. Exhumation of theDahinggan Mountains, NE China from the Late Mesozoic to the Cenozoic: newevidence from fission-track thermochronology. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 42,123–133.

Lin, W., Faure, M., Chen, Y., Ji, W., Wang, F., Wu, L., Charles, N., Wang, J., Wang, Q., 2013. LateMesozoic compressional to extensional tectonics in the Yiwulüshan massif, NE Chinaand its bearing on the evolution of the Yinshan–Yanshan orogenic belt: Part I: Structuralanalyses and geochronological constraints. Gondwana Research 23, 54–77.

Lithgow-Bertelloni, C., Richards, M.A., 1998. Dynamics of Cenozoic and Mesozoic platemotions. Reviews of Geophysics 36, 27–78.

Liu, S., Deng, B., Li, Z., Sun, W., 2012. Architecture of basin–mountain systems and theirinfluences on gas distribution: a case study from the Sichuan basin, South China.Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 47, 204–215.

Ma, L.F. (Ed.), 2002. Geological Atlas of People's Republic of China. ChineseMap PublishingHouse, Beijing.

Ma, Y., Chen, H., Wang, G., 2009. Atlas of tectonics and sequence lithofaciespalaeogeography in South China from Sinian to Neogene. Science Press, Beijing 301pp. (in Chinese).

Maruyama, S., Banno, S., Matsuda, T., Nakajima, T., 1984. Kurosegawa zone and its bearingon the development of the Japanese Islands. Tectonophysics 110, 47–60.

Maruyama, S., Isozaki, Y., Kimura, G., Terabayashi, M., 1997. Paleogeographic maps of theJapanese Islands: plate tectonic synthesis from 750 Ma to the present. Island Arc 6,121–142.

Matthews, K.J., Seton, M., Müller, R.D., 2012. A global-scale plate reorganization event at105–100 Ma. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 355–356, 283–298.

Meade, B.J., Hager, B.H., 2005. Block models of crustal motion in southern Californiaconstrained by GPS measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research 110, B03403.http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004JB003209.

Meng, Q.R., 2003. What drove late Mesozoic extension of the northern China–Mongoliatract? Tectonophysics 369, 155–174.

Meng, Q.R., Hu, J.M., Jin, J.Q., Zhang, Y., Xu, D.F., 2003. Tectonics of the late Mesozoic wideextensional basin system in the China–Mongolia border region. Basin Research 15,397–415.

Menzies, M., Xu, Y., Zhang, H., Fan, W., 2007. Integration of geology, geophysics andgeochemistry: a key to understanding the North China Craton. Lithos 96, 1–21.

Metelkin, D.V., Vernikovsky, V.A., Kazansky, A.Y., Wingate, M.T.D., 2010. Late Mesozoictectonics of Central Asia based on paleomagnetic evidence. Gondwana Research 18,400–419.

114 Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Minamishin,M., Yanagi, T., Yamaguchi, M., 1979. Rb–Srwhole rock ages of the Sanbagawametamorphic rocks in central Shikoku. In: Yamaguchi, M. (Ed.), Isotope Geoscience ofthe Japanese Islands (in Japanese). Report for Scientific Research of the Ministry ofEducation of Japan (No. 334054), pp. 68–71.

Moore, D.E., Rymer, M.J., 2007. Talc-bearing serpentinite and the creeping section of theSan Andreas fault. Nature 448, 795–797.

Nakajima, T., 1994. The Ryoke plutonometamorphic belt: crustal section of the CretaceousEurasian continental margin. Lithos 33, 51–66.

Nakama, T., Hirata, T., Otoh, S., Aoki, K., Yanai, S., Maruyama, S., 2010. Paleogeography ofthe Japanese Islands: age spectra of detrital zircon and provenance history of theorogen. (in Japanese with English abstract) Journal of Geography 119, 1161–1172.

Noda, A., Toshimitsu, S., 2009. Backward stacking of submarine channel-fan successionscontrolled by strike-slip faulting: the Izumi Group (Cretaceous), southwest Japan.Lithosphere 1, 41–59.

Norton, I.O., 2007. Speculations on Cretaceous tectonic history of the northwest Pacificand a tectonic origin for the Hawaii hotspot. In: Foulger, G.R., Jurdy, D.M. (Eds.),Plates, Plumes, and Planetary Processes. Geological Society of America SpecialPaper, 430, pp. 451–470.

Okamoto, K., Shinjoe, H., Katayama, I., Terada, K., Sano, Y., Johnson, S., 2004. SHRIMP U–Pbzircon dating of quartz-bearing eclogite from the Sanbagawa Belt, southwest Japan:implications for metamorphic evolution of subducted protolith. Terra Nova 16,81–89.

Okudaira, T., Hayasaka, Y., Himeno, O., Watanabe, K., Sakurai, Y., Ohtomo, Y., 2001. Coolingand inferred exhumation history of the Ryoke metamorphic belt in the Yanai district,southwest Japan: constraints from Rb–Sr and fission-track ages of gneissose granitoidand numerical modeling. Island Arc 10, 98–115.

Okudaira, T., Beppu, Y., Yano, R., Tsuyama, M., Ishii, K., 2009. Midcrustal horizontal shearzone in the forearc region of the mid-Cretaceous SW Japan arc, inferred from strainanalysis of rocks within the Ryoke metamorphic belt. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences35, 34–44.

Ota, T., Terabayashi, M., Katayama, I., 2004. Thermobaric structure and metamorphicevolution of the Iratsu eclogite body in the Sanbagawa belt, Central Shikoku, Japan.Lithos 73, 95–126.

Otsuki, K., 1992. Oblique subduction, collision of microcontinents and subduction ofoceanic ridge: their implications on the Cretaceous tectonics of Japan. Island Arc 1,51–63.

Parfenov, L.M., Natal'in, B.A., 1986. Mesozoic tectonic evolution of NE Asia. Tectonophysics127, 291–304.

Parsons, T., Thatcher, W., 2011. Diffuse Pacific–North American plate boundary: 1000 kmof dextral shear inferred from modeling geodetic data. Geology 39, 943–946.

Pavlenkova, N.I., Pilipenko, V.N., Verpakhovskaja, A.O., Pavlenkova, G.A., Filonenko, V.P.,2009. Crustal structure in Chile and Okhotsk Sea regions. Tectonophysics 472, 28–38.

Platt, J.P., Becker, T.W., 2010. Where is the real transform boundary in California?Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 11, Q06012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GC003060.

Platt, J.P., Behr, W.M., 2011. Deep structure of lithospheric fault zones. GeophysicalResearch Letters 38, L24308. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL049719.

Ratschbacher, L., Hacker, B.R., Calvert, A.,Webb, L.E., Grimmer, J.C.,McWilliams,M.O., Ireland,T., Dong, S., Hu, J., 2003. Tectonics of the Qinling (Central China): tectonostratigraphy,geochronology, and deformation history. Tectonophysics 366, 1–53.

Ren, J., Tamaki, K., Li, S., Zhang, J., 2002. LateMesozoic and Cenozoic rifting and its dynamicsetting in eastern China and adjacent areas. Tectonophysics 344, 175–205.

Roy, M., Royden, L.H., 2000. Crustal rheology and faulting at strike-slip boundaries: 2.Effects of lower crustal flow. Journal of Geophysical Research 105, 5599–5613.http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/1999JB900340.

Şengör, A.M.C., Natal'in, B.A., 1996. Palaeotectonics of Asia: fragments of a synthesis. In:Yin, A., Harrison, M. (Eds.), The Tectonic Evolution of Asia. Rubey Colloquium,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 486–640.

Seton, M., Müller, R.D., Zahirovic, S., Gaina, C., Torsvik, T., Shephard, G., Talsma, A., Gurnis,M., Turner, M., Maus, S., Chandler, M., 2012. Global continental and ocean basinreconstructions since 200 Ma. Earth-Science Reviews 113, 212–270.

Shen, C.B., Mei, L.F., Xu, S.H., 2009. Fission track dating of Mesozoic sandstone and itstectonic significance in the Eastern Sichuan Basin, China. Radiation Measurements44, 945–949.

Shu, L., Deng, P., Wang, B., Tan, Z., Yu, X., Sun, Y., 2004. Lithology, kinematics and geo-chronology related to Late Mesozoic basin-mountain evolution in the Nanxiong–Zhuguang area, South China. Science in China, Series D: Earth Sciences 47,673–688.

Smith, A.D., 2003. A reappraisal of stress field and convective roll models for the originand distribution of Cretaceous to recent intraplate volcanism in the Pacific Basin.International Geology Review 45, 287–302.

Smith, A.D., 2007. A plate tectonic model for Jurassic to recent intraplate volcanism in thePacific Ocean basin. Geological Society of America Special Paper 430, 471–496(http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/2007.2430(23)).

Stone, D.B., Minyuk, P., Kolosev, E., 2003. New paleomagnetic paleolatitudes for theOmulevka terrane of northeast Russia: a comparison with the Omolon terrane andthe eastern Siberian platform. Tectonophysics 377, 55–82.

Suzuki, K., Adachi, M., 1998. Denudation history of the high T/P Ryoke metamorphic belt,southwest Japan: constraints from CHIME monazite ages of gneisses and granitoids.Journal of Metamorphic Geology 16, 23–37.

Taira, A., 2001. Tectonic evolution of the Japanese island arc system. Annual Review ofEarth and Planetary Sciences 29, 109–134.

Taira, A., Saitoh, Y., Hashimoto, M., 1983. The role of oblique subduction and strike-sliptectonics in evolution of Japan. In: Hilde, T.W.C., Uyeda, S. (Eds.), Geodynamics ofthe Western Pacific–Indonesian Region. Geodynamic Series American GeophysicalUnion, 11, pp. 303–316.

Taira, A., Katto, J., Tashiro, M., Okamura, M., Kodama, K., 1988. The Shimanto Belt inShikoku, Japan: evolution of Cretaceous to Miocene accretionary prism. ModernGeology 12, 5–46.

Takagi, H., 1986. Implications of mylonitic microstructures for the geotectonic evolutionof the Median Tectonic Line, central Japan. Journal of Structural Geology 8, 3–14.

Terekhov, E.P., Mozherovsky, A.V., Tsoy, I.B., Lelikov, E.P., Vashchenkova, N.G., Gorovaya,M.T., 2012. Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic volcanosedimentary complexes from thesubmarine Vityaz Ridge, the island arc slope of the Kuril–Kamchatka trench, and itsevolution. Russian Journal of Pacific Geology 6, 209–216.

Tikhomirov, P.L., Kalinina, E.A., Moriguti, T., Makishima, A., 2012. The CretaceousOkhotsk–Chukotka Volcanic Belt (NE Russia): Geology, geochronology, magmaoutput rates, and implications on the genesis of silicic LIPs. Journal of Volcanologyand Geothermal Research 221–222, 14–32.

Tivey, M.A., Larson, R., Schouten, H., Pockalny, R., 2005. Downhole magnetic measure-ments of ODP Hole 801C: implications for Pacific oceanic crust and magnetic fieldbehavior in the Middle Jurassic. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 6, Q04008.http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004GC000754.

Toth, J., Gurnis, M., 1998. Dynamics of subduction initiation at pre-existing fault zones.Journal of Geophysical Research 103, 18,053–18,067. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/98JB01076.

Uno, K., Furukawa, K., Hada, S., 2011. Margin-parallel translation in the western Pacific:paleomagnetic evidence from an allochthonous terrane in Japan. Earth and PlanetaryScience Letters 303, 153–161.

Utsunomiya, A., Jahn, B.M., Okamoto, K., Ota, T., Shinjoe, H., 2011. Intra-oceanic island arcorigin for Iratsu eclogites of the Sanbagawa belt, central Shikoku, southwest Japan.Chemical Geology 280, 97–114.

Van der Meer, D.G., Torsvik, T.H., Spakman, W., van Hinsbergen, D.J.J., Amaru, M.L., 2012.Intra-Panthalassa Ocean subduction zones revealed by fossil arcs and mantle struc-ture. Nature Geoscience 5, 215–219.

Wakita, K., 2013. Geology and tectonics of Japanese islands: a review—the key to under-standing the geology of Asia. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 72, 75–87.

Wallis, S.R., Endo, S., 2010. Comment on ‘Metamorphic P–T–time history of theSanbabawabelt in central Shikoku, Japan and implication for retrogrademetamorphismduring exhumation’ by Aoki et al. (Lithos 113 (2009) 393-407). Lithos 116, 195–196.

Wallis, S., Anczkiewicz, R., Endo, S., Aoya, M., Platt, J.P., Thirlwall, M., Hirata, T., 2009.Movements, ductile deformation and geochronology of the Sanbagawa belt, SWJapan: tectonic significance of 88–89 Ma Lu–Hf eclogite ages. Journal of MetamorphicGeology 27, 93–105.

Wang, X., Zhong, D., Wang, Y., 2008. Geometry, kinematics and thermochronology studyof the Late Mesozoic movement of NW-trending faults, Western Shandong. (inChinese with English abstract) Acta Geologica Sinica 82, 1258–1273.

Wang, T., Zheng, Y., Zhang, J., Zeng, L., Donskaya, T., Guo, L., Li, J., 2011. Pattern and kine-matic polarity of late Mesozoic extension in continental NE Asia: perspectives frommetamorphic core complexes. Tectonics 30, TC6007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011TC002896.

Watson, M.P., Hayward, A.B., Parkinson, D.N., Zhang, Z.M., 1987. Plate tectonic history,basin development and petroleum source rock deposition onshore China. Marineand Petroleum Geology 4, 205–225.

Wintsch, R.P., Byrne, T., Toriumi, M., 1999. Exhumation of the Sanbagawa blueschist belt,SW Japan, by lateral flow and extrusion: evidence from structural kinematics andretrograde P–T–t paths. In: Ring, U., Brandon, M.T., Lister, G.S., Willett, S.D. (Eds.),Exhumation Processes: Normal Faulting, Ductile Flow and Erosion. Geological Society,London, Special Publications, 154, pp. 129–155.

Wintsch, R.P., Yang, H.J., Li, X.H., Tung, K.A., 2011. Geochronologic evidence for a cold arc–continent collision: the Taiwan orogeny. Lithos 125, 236–248.

Wu, Z., Wu, Z., 2003a. Low-temperature thermochonological analysis of the uplift historyof the Yanshan Mountain and its neighboring area. (in Chinese with English abstract)Acta Geologica Sinica 77, 399–406.

Wu, Z., Wu, Z., 2003b. Uplift history of the DaqingMountain since the Late Cretaceous. (inChinese with English abstract) Acta Geoscientia Sinica 24, 205–210.

Wu, F.Y., Lin, J.Q., Wilde, S.A., Zhang, X., Yang, J.H., 2005. Nature and significance of theEarly Cretaceous giant igneous event in eastern China. Earth and Planetary ScienceLetters 233, 103–119.

Xu, Y.G., 2001. Thermo-tectonic destruction of the Archean lithospheric keel beneaththe Sino-Korean Craton in China: evidence, timing and mechanism. Physics andChemistry of the Earth 26, 747–757.

Xu, Y.G., 2007. Diachronous lithospheric thinning of the North China Craton and forma-tion of the Daxin'anling-Taihangshan gravity lineament. Lithos 96, 281–298.

Xu, J., Gao, Z., Sun, J., Song, C., 2001. A preliminary study of the coupling relationship be-tween basin and mountain in extensional environments—a case study of the BohaiBay Basin and Taihang Mountain. (in Chinese with English abstract) Acta GeologicaSinica 75, 165–174.

Yan, D.P., Zhou, M.F., Song, H.L., Wang, X.W., Malpas, J., 2003. Origin and tectonic signifi-cance of a Mesozoic multi-layer over-thrust system within the Yangtze Block (SouthChina). Tectonophysics 361, 239–254.

Yan, J., Chen, J., Xie, Z., Zhou, T., 2003. Mantle xenoliths from Late Cretaceous basalt ineastern Shandong Province: new constraint on the timing of lithospheric thinningin eastern China. (in Chinese with English abstract) Chinese Science Bulletin 48,2139–2144.

Yan, Y., Hu, X., Lin, G., Santosh, M., Chan, L.S., 2011. Sedimentary provenance of theHengyang and Mayang basins, SE China, and implications for the Mesozoic topo-graphic change in South China Craton: evidence from detrital zircon geochronology.Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 41, 494–503.

Yang, Y., Li, W., Ma, L., 2005. Tectonic and stratigraphic controls of hydrocarbon systemsin the Ordos basin: a multicycle cratonic basin in central China. American Associationof Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 89, 255–270.

115Y.-T. Yang / Earth-Science Reviews 126 (2013) 96–115

Yin, A., Nie, S., 1996. A Phanerozoic palinspastic reconstruction of China and its neighbor-ing regions. In: Yin, A., Harrison, T.M. (Eds.), The Tectonic Evolution of Asia. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, pp. 442–485.

Yui, T.F., Okamotoa, K., Usukia, T., Lan, C.Y., Chub, H.T., Liou, J.G., 2009. Late Triassic–LateCretaceous accretion/subduction in the Taiwan region along the eastern margin ofSouth China—evidence from zircon SHRIMP dating. International Geology Review51, 304–328.

Yui, T.F., Maki, K., Lan, C.Y., Hirata, T., Chu, H.T., Kon, Y., Yokoyama, T.D., Jahn, B.M., Ernst,W.G., 2012. Detrital zircons from the Tananao Metamorphic Complex of Taiwan:implications for sediment provenance and Mesozoic tectonics. Tectonophysics541–543, 31–42.

Zhang, C., Song, H., Wang, G., Yan, D., Sun,W., 2001.Mesozoic dextral strike-slip structuralsystem in middle segment of intraplate Yanshan Orogenic Belt, northern China.(in Chinese with English abstract) Earth Science. Journal of China University ofGeosciences 26, 464–472.

Zhang, Y., Dong, S., Shi, W., 2003. Cretaceous deformation history of the middle Tan-Lufault zone in the Shandong Province, eastern China. Tectonophysics 363, 243–258.

Zhang, C., Wu, G., Wang, G., Zhang,W., Song, H., 2004. Northwest trending tectonic belt inthe middle Yanshan Orogenic Belt of northeast Hebei Province, North China:tectonic evolution and geochronology. Science in China, Series D: Earth Sciences 47,896–911.

Zhang, R.Q., Zhou, Y., Wang, X.W., Li, S.J., Li, S., 2009. Structural features and tectonicevolution of the Wei-Zi-Luo Fault Zone in southwestern Guizhou Province. (in

Chinese with English abstract) International Journal of Geomechanics 15,178–189.

Zhang, Y., Shi, W., Dong, S., 2011. Changes of Late Mesozoic tectonic regimes around theOrdos Basin (North China) and their geodynamic implications. Acta Geologica Sinica85, 1254–1276.

Zhang, Y.B., Zhai, M., Hou, Q.L., Li, T.S., Liu, F., Hu, B., 2012. Late Cretaceous volcanic rocksand associated granites in Gyeongsang Basin, SE Korea: their chronological ages andtectonic implications for cratonic destruction of the North China Craton. Journal ofAsian Earth Sciences 47, 252–264.

Zhao, G.C., Sun, M., Wilde, S.A., Li, S.Z., 2005. Late Archean to Paleoproterozoic evolution ofthe North China Craton: key issues revisited. Precambrian Research 136, 177–202.

Zheng, Y.F., 2012. Metamorphic chemical geodynamics in continental subduction zones.Chemical Geology 328, 5–48.

Zheng, Y., Yuan,W., Wang, D., Jiang, G., Zhu, D., Wang, C., Jia, Y., 2011. Exhumation historyof the Huangshan granite pluton, southern Anhui Province: new insights fromfission-track analysis. Science in China, Series D: Earth Sciences 54, 528–539.

Zhu, G., Jiang, D., Zhang, B., Chen, Y., 2012. Destruction of the eastern North China Cratonin a backarc setting: evidence from crustal deformation kinematics. GondwanaResearch 22, 86–103.

Zonenshain, L.P., Kuzmin, M.I., Natapov, L.M., 1990. Geology of the USSR: a plate tectonicsynthesis. Geodynamic Series American Geophysical Union 21, 1–242.

Zorin, Y.A., 1999. Geodynamics of the western part of the Mongolia–Okhotsk collisionalbelt, Trans-Baikal region (Russia) and Mongolia. Tectonophysics 306, 33–56.