The Ereendavaa Range (north-eastern Mongolia): an additional argument for Mesozoic extension throughout eastern Asia

International audienceMesozoic rift basins locally bounding metamorphic core complexes have been recognized in Transbaikalia and northern China. Numerous basement outcrops located between these two regions, in eastern Mongolia, are considered as pre-Palaeozoic in age. One of these, the Ereendavaa Range, appears as a gneissic core marked by amphibolite-facies metamorphic conditions. The range is overlain to the NW by the unmetamorphosed Mesozoic Onon Basin. Below the basin, the upper part of the range consists of a gently NW-dipping shear zone associated with top-to-the-NW motion. The structural pattern is consistent with syn-extensional exhumation of the range. Preliminary geochronological data indicate that the shear zone is late Jurassic to early Cretaceous in age, coeval with the Onon Basin. These new data from eastern Mongolia constitute a link between Transbaikalia and northern China, indicating that NW-SE extensional Mesozoic tectonics occurred throughout the entire region

Mesozoic crustal thinning throughout eastern Asia : New insights from Mongolia

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The age and origin of volcanics in the Riphean section of the Siberian craton (western Baikal area)

In the western Baikal area, the structural position, composition, and age of volcanic rocks in the section of the Riphean margin of the Siberian craton were studied. The age of these rocks, earlier assigned to the Khotskaya Formation, is estimated at 274±3 Ma (concordia constructed over 11 zircon grains, SHRIMP-II). The geochemical and isotope compositions of volcanics evidence that they resulted from the melting of mantle source of EM-I type contaminated by crustal material. The intrusion of volcanics into the upper crustal horizons might have been caused by the evolution of the Permian active margin of the Siberian continent, which took place on the background of the closure of the Mongolo-Okhotsk ocean. Based on the results of studies, a new subvolcanic complex of Early Permian age has been recognized in the region, which includes the above-mentioned volcanics and earlier described porphyrite dikes of close age in the Sharyzhalgai uplift. The data obtained disprove the concept that the studied volcanics are of Riphean age; therefore, the available stratigraphic charts of the Siberian Precambrian must be revised

Using the isotope dating of endocontact hybrid rocks for the age determination of mafic rocks (southern Siberian craton)

Geological observations and petrological and geochemical criteria are used to detect hybrid rocks at the endocontact of a dolerite dike. The hybrid rocks were produced when the material of a mafic intrusion mixed with a felsic melt. The latter was produced by the melting of the metamorphic rocks making up the Goloustnaya basement inlier of the Siberian craton, under the thermal effect of the intruded dike. Two age groups of zircon have been identified in the hybrid rock by SHRIMP analysis. The Paleoproterozoic age of inherited zircon (1902, 1864, 1859, and 1855 Ma) reflects the contribution of ancient sources to the hybrid-rock composition. The young, primary-magmatic, zircon grains, produced by melting at the endocontact of the mafic intrusion (494 ± 5 Ma), are coeval with the hybrid rocks, and their age indicates when the mafic rocks intruded the metamorphic framework. Dikes of close age, with similar geochemical characteristics, are present on the vast southern margin of the Siberian craton-from Goloustnaya to Biryusa salients. © 2013