Owing to most tectonic events in Precambrian have been modified by intensive post-Precambrian overprinting, the question how exactly crustal recycling operated on earlier Earth remains an open one. Here, we report a SE-striking, 175 km-long deep seismic reflection profile that traverses the Sichuan basin, China. The image shows a well-preserved syn-Rodinian orogen resting beneath flat lying sedimentary cover of the basin. Relative to the counterparts of modern Earth, this orogen shows a structurally complex Moho geometry composed of multiple layers of basaltic sills, exhibiting extensive crustal extraction. The outlined crustal architecture further depicts that growth of the upper plate arose dominantly through tectonothermal processes, while coeval ductile underthrusting and overthrusting drove contemporaneous crustal shortening of the lower plate. Together with accretionary stacking above, these processes coevally generated a crustal thickness to ~ 30 km. This well-preserved syn-Rodinian orogen provides direct evidence for understanding contemporaneous continental recycling that assembled the Rodinia supercontinent.

Plain language summary

Near-vertical, deep seismic reflection profiling is an effective technique for mapping complicated subsurface structures. In this study, the obtained high-resolution deep seismic reflection image captured a non-modified syn-Rodinian orogenic belt resting beneath flay lying sedimentary cover of the Sichuan basin, western Yangtze block, China. Structural interpretation and associated tectonic implications tell us: (1) the Yangtze block was actually a tectonic collage of microcontinents accreted during Neoproterozoic Rodinian assembly, (2) contemporaneous crustal recycling is featured with extensive crustal extraction, and (3) crustal growth was dominantly driven by tectonothermal events in the upper plate of the convergent zone and crustal shortening in a way of coeval underthrusting and overthrusting in the lower plate, a scenario that has shown no big difference with the counterparts of modern Earth. This well-preserved Neoproterozoic orogenic belt provides direct evidence for helping understand the continental recycling that assembled the Rodinia Supercontinent.