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    A Late Eocene- Oligocene through-flowing river between the Upper Yangtze and South China Sea

    Clift, P.D. and Carter, Andrew and Wysocka, A. and Van Long, H. and Zheng, H. and Neubeck, N. (2020) A Late Eocene- Oligocene through-flowing river between the Upper Yangtze and South China Sea. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 21 (7), e2020GC009046. ISSN 1525-2027.

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    Abstract

    We test the hypothesis of a major Paleogene river draining the SE Tibetan Plateau and the central modern Yangtze Basin that then flowed South to the South China Sea. We test this model using U Pb dated detrital zircon grains preserved in Paleogene sedimentary rocks in northern Vietnam and SW China. We applied a series of statistical tests to compare the U-Pb age spectra of the rocks in order to highlight differences and similarities between them and with potential source bedrocks. Monte Carlo mixing models imply that erosion was dominantly derived from the Indochina and Songpan-Garzê Blocks and to a lesser extent the Yangtze Craton. Some of the zircon populations indicate local erosion and sedimentation, but others show close similarity both within northern Vietnam, as well as more widely in the Eocene Jianchuan, Paleocene-Oligocene Simao and Oligocene-Miocene Yuanjiang basins of China. The presence of younger (<200 Ma) zircons from the Qamdo Block of Tibet are less easily explicable in terms of recycling by erosion of older sedimentary rocks and imply a regional drainage linking SE Tibet and the South China Sea in the Late Eocene-Oligocene. Detrital zircons from offshore in the South China Sea showed initial local erosion, but with a connection to a river stretching to SE Tibet in the Late Oligocene. A change from regional to local sources in the Early Miocene in the Yuanjiang Basin indicates the timing of disruption of the old drainage driven by regional plateau uplift.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at the link above. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Earth and Planetary Sciences, Institute of
    Depositing User: Andy Carter
    Date Deposited: 02 Jun 2020 15:24
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:00
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/32071

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