Multiple phases of deformation in the southern Helanshan tectonic Belt, northern China

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Highlights

  • SHTB has undergone five phases of deformation during the Phanerozoic.

  • The first two phases are N-S shortening occurred in the Paleozoic.

  • The third and fourth phases are NNE-SSW and WNW-ESE shortening in the Mesozoic.

  • The fifth phase is NE-SW shortening in the Late Miocene.

Abstract

The Southern Helanshan Tectonic Belt (SHTB) is surrounded by the Alxa Massif, the Ordos Basin and the Tibetan Plateau, and its Phanerozoic structures records crucial Phanerozoic deformation characteristics for studying the multi-phased intracontinental deformation processes among these neighboring units. Combined with regional geology, our structural analysis reveals that the SHTB has experienced five phases of shortening deformation during the Phanerozoic. The first phase (D1) is represented by E-W-trending overturned folds in the Cambrian and Ordovician strata. These folds resulted from two episodes of N-S shortening during the Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician and Late Ordovician-Early Devonian respectively, which were attributed to the closure of the Qilian ocean. The second phase (D2) is characterized by E-W-trending open folds involving the Upper Devonian strata, which was the products of N-S shortening caused by the assembly of the Qilian ocean and the North China Craton (NCC) at the end of Devonian. The third phase (D3) is indicated by some WNW-trending Jura-type folds in the Carboniferous strata, formed by NNE-SSW shortening during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic related to the collision between the NCC and the South China Block. The fourth phase (D4) is inferred by NNE-trending shortening structures in the Jurassic and its underlying strata, generated by WNW-ESE shortening in the Late Jurassic echoing the Paleo-Pacific subduction. The fifth stage (D5) is characterized by the NE-SW shortening in the Late Miocene, leading to the formation of many NW-SE striking thrust faults in the Miocene and its underlying strata, because the outward expansion of the Tibetan Plateau.

Introduction

The Southern Helanshan Tectonic Belt (SHTB) is spatially restricted to a triangular area bounded by the Alxa Massif to its northwest, the Ordos Basin to its northeast, and the Tibetan Plateau to its southwest (Fig. 1a, b). All these three units have experienced multiple intracontinental deformation during the Phanerozoic (Tang et al., 1988; Li, 1997, Li, 2006b; Shi et al., 2015c, Xu et al., 2015). As one intracontinental belt, the SHTB is formed by interactions between these units and thus records detailed tectonic information during this process. Therefore, clarifying the structural deformation in the SHTB is critical to understanding of the Phanerozoic intracontinental deformation in the Alxa Massif, the Ordos Basin, and the Tibetan Plateau, and to cognition of the tectonic evolution in east Asian continent during the Phanerozoic (Tang et al., 1988; Liu, 1998, Darby and Ritts, 2002, Zhao, 2003, Yang et al., 2008, Yin, 2010, Kim et al., 2011, Kim et al., 2017, Xuanthanh et al., 2011).

As the SHTB is important for study the tectonic evolution of the Alxa Massif, the Ordos Basin, and the Tibetan Plateau, a considerable number of studies on global tectonics, sedimentology, paleomagnetism, GPS measurements, geodynamics, and numerical modeling have been conducted (e.g., Tang et al., 1988; Li, 1997; Yang et al., 1998, Huang et al., 1999, Huang et al., 2000a, Huang et al., 2000b, Li et al., 2006, Yang et al., 2012, Wang et al., 2013, Wang et al., 2014b, Xu et al., 2015, Li et al., 2019). These investigations have suggested that major tectonic events that occurred in this area including the opening and closure of the oceanic basin, the epi-metamorphism of the Lower Paleozoic strata, and the post-orogenic magmatism during the Early Paleozoic (Du et al., 2001, Xiao, 2003, Xiao et al., 2009, Song et al., 2006, Song et al., 2013, Sun et al., 2019a, Sun et al., 2019b, Sun and Dong, 2019c, Sun and Dong, 2020). The area is lacking of the Permian to Triassic strata, and a number of angular unconformities have been found in the area, such as the unconformity between the Carboniferous and Middle Jurassic strata, angular unconformity between the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous strata, and the angular unconformities within Cenozoic strata. Additionally, a series of superimposed structures observed in the Phanerozoic strata indicate complex tectonic evolutionary process during the Phanerozoic (Fig. 2a, b) (BGMRNXHAR, 1990). Besides some seismic reflection profiles have been used to investigate the structural characteristics of the basins (e.g., in the western margin of the Ordos Basin and in the Bayanhot basin) in the surrounding areas (e.g., Liu, 1994, Liu, 1997, Zhao et al., 2007, Hou et al., 2014), some other geophysical methods have also been employed to analyze deep crust structures of the SHTB (e.g., Li et al., 2006, Wang, 2008, Zhou et al., 2012, Wang et al., 2014a, Guo et al., 2015, Ding et al., 2017, Zhan et al., 2017, Ye et al., 2018, Xia et al., 2019). Nevertheless, studies on detailed tectonic evolutionary processes and relevant stress fields during the Phanerozoic are still scarce, which restricts the understanding on the Phanerozoic tectonic evolution of the east Asian.

In this paper, we conducted structural analysis on the geometry, kinematic, and dynamic characteristics of the Phanerozoic structures in the SHTB. Combined with detailed geological mapping, the results are used to constrain Phanerozoic tectonic deformation characteristics in the Alxa Massif, the Ordos Basin, and the Tibetan Plateau.

Section snippets

Geological setting

The SHTB is situated in southwestern domain of the North China Craton (NCC), encompassed by the Alxa Massif, the Ordos Basin, and the Tibetan Plateau (Fig. 1a). It is separated from the Alxa Massif by the Bayanhot fault to the northwest, from the Helanshan tectonic belt and the Ordos Basin by the Sanguankou-Niushoushan fault to its northeast, and is separated from the Tibetan Plateau by the Tianjingshan fault to the southwest (Fig. 1b) (Liu, 1994, Liu, 1997; Tang et al., 1988; Yang and Dong,

Methods of structural analysis

When a layer is under a condition of parallel shortening, it will be shortened and folded (Ghosh, 1966, Ramsay and Huber, 1987). The fold axis is usually parallel to the major axis of a strain ellipse, and there is a tendency of the strain ellipsoids to be roughly symmetrical about the axial plane (Ghosh, 1966, Ramsay and Huber, 1987). Accordingly, the shortening direction can be determined as it is vertical to the hinge line and the axial plane of the folds simultaneously (Ghosh, 1966). For

Structural analysis

Coupled investigations conducted on geometry, kinematics and dynamics of deformation in the SHTB, together with the studies on superposed structures and the angular unconformities within the strata, five phases of deformation with their paleostress fields from the Paleozoic to Cenozoic have been determined in the SHTB.

Discussion

In this chapter, we firstly discuss the deformation phases and then represent a tectonic model.

Conclusions

Based on synthesis of the regional tectonic framework, together with our new data on the deformation structures in the SHTB, the following main conclusions could be drawn:

  • 1)

    The SHTB has been evolved into two phases of ~ N-S shortening in the Paleozoic (D1 & D2), leading to the formation of E-W striking shortening structures in the Cambrian-Ordovician and Upper Devonian strata respectively. The D1 occurred in the Early Paleozoic including two episodes is related to the closure of Qilian ocean, and

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xiangyang Yang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Yunpeng Dong: Resources, Data curation, Validation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Jiaopeng Sun for his assistance in the field excursion. Anlin Guo and Bo Hui are appreciated for kindly polishing the English. Financial support for this study is jointly provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 41421002, 41772226 and 41702210), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grants Nos. 2016YFC0601003 and 2016YFC0600202), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant

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