Tectonics of the Longmen Shan and Adjacent Regions, Central China

The Longmen Shan region includes, from west to east, the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, the Sichuan Basin, and the eastern part of the eastern Sichuan fold-and-thrust belt. In the northeast, it merges with the Micang Shan, a part of the Qinling Mountains. The Longmen Shan region can be divided into two major tectonic elements: (1) an autochthon/parautochthon, which underlies the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau, the Sichuan Basin, and the eastern Sichuan fold-and-thrust belt; and (2) a complex allochthon, which underlies the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. The allochthon was emplaced toward the southeast during Late Triassic time, and it and the western part of the autochthon/parautochthon were modified by Cenozoic deformation. The autochthon/parautochthon was formed from the western part of the Yangtze platform and consists of a Proterozoic basement covered by a thin, incomplete succession of Late Proterozoic to Middle Triassic shallow-marine and nonmarine sedimentary rocks interrupted by Permian extension and basic magmatism in the southwest. The platform is bounded by continental margins that formed in Silurian time to the west and in Late Proterozoic time to the north. Within the southwestern part of the platform is the narrow N-trending Kungdian high, a paleogeographic unit that was positive during part of Paleozoic time and whose crest is characterized by nonmarine Upper Triassic rocks unconformably overlying Proterozoic basement. In the western part of the Longmen Shan region, the allochthon is composed mainly of a very thick succession of strongly folded Middle and Upper Triassic Songpan Ganzi flysch. Along the eastern side and at the base of the allochthon, pre-Upper Triassic rocks crop out, forming the only exposures of the western margin of the Yangtze platform. Here, Upper Proterozoic to Ordovician, mainly shallow-marine rocks unconformably overlie Yangtze-type Proterozic basement rocks, but in Silurian time a thick section of fine-grained clastic and carbonate rocks were deposited, marking the initial subsidence of the western Yangtze platform and formation of a continental margin. Similar deep-water rocks were deposited throughout Devonian to Middle Triassic time, when Songpan Ganzi flysch deposition began. Permian conglomerate and basic volcanic rocks in the southeastern part of the allochthon indicate a second period of extension along the continental margin. Evidence suggests that the deep-water region along and west of the Yangtze continental margin was underlain mostly by thin continental crust, but its westernmost part may have contained areas underlain by oceanic crust. In the northern part of the Longmen Shan allochthon, thick Devonian to Upper Triassic shallow-water deposits of the Xue Shan platform are flanked by deep-marine rocks and the platform is interpreted to be a fragment of the Qinling continental margin transported westward during early Mesozoic transpressive tectonism. In the Longmen Shan region, the allochthon, carrying the western part of the Yangtze continental margin and Songpan Ganzi flysch, was emplaced to the southeast above rocks of the Yangtze platform autochthon. The eastern margin of the allochthon in the northern Longmen Shan is unconformably overlapped by both Lower and Middle Jurassic strata that are continuous with rocks of the autochthon. Folded rocks of the allochthon are unconformably overlapped by Lower and Middle Jurassic rocks in rare outcrops in the northern part of the region. They also are extensively intruded by a poorly dated, generally undeformed belt, of plutons whose ages (mostly K/Ar ages) range from Late Triassic to early Cenozoic, but most of the reliable ages are early Mesozoic. All evidence indicates that the major deformation within the allochthon is Late Triassic/Early Jurassic in age (Indosinian). The eastern front of the allochthon trends southwest across the present mountain front, so it lies along the mountain front in the northeast, but is located well to the west of the present mountain front on the south. The Late Triassic deformation is characterized by upright to overturned folded and refolded Triassic flysch, with generally NW-trending axial traces in the western part of the region. Folds and thrust faults curve to the north when traced to the east, so that along the eastern front of the allochthon structures trend northeast, involve pre-Triassic rocks, and parallel the eastern boundary of the allochthon. The curvature of structural trends is interpreted as forming part of a left-lateral transpressive boundary developed during emplacement of the allochthon. Regionally, the Longmen Shan lies along a NE-trending transpressive margin of the Yangtze platform within a broad zone of generally N-S shortening. North of the Longmen Shan region, northward subduction led to collision of the South and North China continental fragments along the Qinling Mountains, but northwest of the Longmen Shan region, subduction led to shortening within the Songpan Ganzi flysch basin, forming a detached fold-and-thrust belt. South of the Longmen Shan region, the flysch basin is bounded by the Shaluli Shan/Chola Shan arc—an originally Sfacing arc that reversed polarity in Late Triassic time, leading to shortening along the southern margin of the Songpan Ganzi flysch belt. Shortening within the flysch belt was oblique to the Yangtze continental margin such that the allochthon in the Longmen Shan region was emplaced within a left-lateral transpressive environment. Possible clockwise rotation of the Yangtze platform (part of the South China continental fragment) also may have contributed to left-lateral transpression with SE-directed shortening. During left-lateral transpression, the Xue Shan platform was displaced southwestward from the Qinling orogen and incorporated into the Longmen Shan allochthon. Westward movement of the platform caused complex refolding in the northern part of the Longmen Shan region. Emplacement of the allochthon flexurally loaded the western part of the Yangtze platform autochthon, forming a Late Triassic foredeep. Foredeep deposition, often involving thick conglomerate units derived from the west, continued from Middle Jurassic into Cretaceous time, although evidence for deformation of this age in the allochthon is generally lacking. Folding in the eastern Sichuan fold-and-thrust belt along the eastern side of the Sichuan Basin can be dated as Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous in age, but only in areas 100 km east of the westernmost folds. Folding and thrusting was related to convergent activity far to the east along the eastern margin of South China. The westernmost folds trend southwest and merge to the south with folds and locally form refolded folds that involve Upper Cretaceous and lower Cenozoic rocks. The boundary between Cenozoic and late Mesozoic folding on the eastern and southern margins of the Sichuan Basin remains poorly determined. The present mountainous eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau in the Longmen Shan region is a consequence of Cenozoic deformation. It rises within 100 km from 500–600 m in the Sichuan Basin to peaks in the west reaching 5500 m and 7500 m in the north and south, respectively. West of these high peaks is the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, an area of low relief at an elevations of about 4000 m. Cenozoic deformation can be demonstrated in the autochthon of the southern Longmen Shan, where the stratigraphic sequence is without an angular unconformity from Paleozoic to Eocene or Oligocene time. During Cenozoic deformation, the western part of the Yangtze platform (part of the autochthon for Late Triassic deformation) was deformed into a N- to NE-trending foldandthrust belt. In its eastern part the fold-thrust belt is detached near the base of the platform succession and affects rocks within and along the western and southern margin of the Sichuan Basin, but to the west and south the detachment is within Proterozoic basement rocks. The westernmost structures of the fold-thrust belt form a belt of exposed basement massifs. During the middle and later part of the Cenozoic deformation, strike-slip faulting became important; the fold-thrust belt became partly right-lateral transpressive in the central and northeastern Longmen Shan. The southern part of the fold-thrust belt has a more complex evolution. Early Nto NE-trending folds and thrust faults are deformed by NW-trending basementinvolved folds and thrust faults that intersect with the NE-trending right-lateral strike-slip faults. Youngest structures in this southern area are dominated by left-lateral transpression related to movement on the Xianshuihe fault system. The extent of Cenozoic deformation within the area underlain by the early Mesozoic allochthon remains unknown, because of the absence of rocks of the appropriate age to date Cenozoic deformation. Klippen of the allochthon were emplaced above the Cenozoic fold-andthrust belt in the central part of the eastern Longmen Shan, indicating that the allochthon was at least partly reactivated during Cenozoic time. Only in the Min Shan in the northern part of the allochthon is Cenozoic deformation demonstrated along two active zones of E-W shortening and associated left-slip. These structures trend obliquely across early Mesozoic structures and are probably related to shortening transferred from a major zone of active left-slip faulting that trends through the western Qinling Mountains. Active deformation is along the left-slip transpressive NW-trending Xianshuihe fault zone in the south, right-slip transpression along several major NE-trending faults in the central and northeastern Longmen Shan, and E-W shortening with minor left-slip movement along the Min Jiang and Huya fault zones in the north. Our estimates of Cenozoic shortening along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau appear to be inadequate to account for the thick crust and high elevation of the plateau. We suggest here that the thick crust and high elevation is caused by lateral flow of the middle and lower crust eastward from the central part of the plateau and only minor crustal shortening in the upper crust. Upper crustal structure is largely controlled in the Longmen Shan region by older crustal anisotropics; thus shortening and eastward movement of upper crustal material is characterized by irregular deformation localized along older structural boundaries.