| Abstract: |
The extant continental configuration of south-eastern mainland Asia, a complex collage of Tethyan and Circum-Pacific suture-bounded tectonostratigraphic terranes, reveals a predominantly Mesozoic accretionary heritage. Permo-Triassic accretion of the Tarim and Qaidam-Alashan Blocks and the Inner Mongolia-Great Khingan Arc of northern China and Mongolia was followed by the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic accretion of terranes of the Songban Ganzi Accretionary Complex and South China Superterrane including the Indosinia and Shan-Thai-Malaya Blocks. The Medial Jurassic to Early Cretaceous accretion of the Sino-Korea/Songliao-Bureya Superterrane and Jiangfudong Terrane of eastern China, the Mongol-Okhotsk Terrane of eastern Mongolia and Transbaikalia and the West Burma Terrane were in turn followed by the Cretaceous accretion of the Sikhote-Alin Terrane of the southern Soviet Far East, the Ogcheon Terrane of southern Korea and the Fujian Terrane of southeastern coastal China. The accretion of each terrane or groups of terranes was accompanied by intense silicic to intermediate igneous activity, regional metamorphism, widespread penetrative deformation, ophiolite emplacement, and regional unconformity. Incisement by Mesozoic-Cenozoic marginal-Pacific transcurrent faulting and lithospheric extension and Paleogene to Recent intracontinental deformation have profoundly altered original accretionary relationships and created seemingly contradictory architectonic geometries.
|
