Vice Professor ZHANG Xiaohui and his team document three Middle to Late Triassic ferroan granitoid suites from northwestern Liaoning, North China, and proposes distinct petrogenetic scenarios for each.

These contrasting ferroan granitoid suites not only provide a spatial marker for monitoring juxtaposition of the North China Craton (NCC) and the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) along a lithospheric-scale boundary fault in the region, but also present a temporal snapshot that records a southwardly-progressing crustal growth scenario possibly in response to lithospheric dripping within a post-orogenic extensional regime. The cratonic scale synthesis further indicates that diachronous decratonization pattern of the NCC might record episodic response of the craton to evolved plate tectonic processes with two contrasting Phanerozoic orogenic systems.

Fig. 1. (a) Simplified map showing major tectonic units of the North China Craton. (b) Sketch distribution map of the basins and faults in western and northern Liaoning.(Image by ZHANG)

Fig. 2. Whole-rock Sr-Nd isotopic composition and Zircon Hf isotopic composition of three iron granite series.(Image by ZHANG)

Zhang et al. Contrasting Triassic ferroan granitoids from northwestern Liaoning, North China: magmatic monitor of Mesozoic decratonization and a craton-orogen boundary. Lithos. 2012, 144–145: 12–23(Download Here)