Thermochronology of Mesozoic Sandstone from the Beipiao Basin and Its Implication to Meso-Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of the Eastern Yan-Liao Orogenic Belt

摘要

Combining the single-grain low-temperature apatite fission track with high-temperature zircon U-Pb dating of sandstone can better reveal the temporal association between the source and depositional site, and identify both the age component of the source terrain and subsequent thermo-tectonic events after deposition. This paper introduces the single- grain zircon U-Pb dating and fission track (FT) dating of sediments from the Beipiao basin in Northeast China. The U-Pb ages of 18 single zircon grains collected from the early Jurassic Beipiao Formation range from 194.3±2.9 to 233.8±4.2 Ma and most of apatite FT ages are about 30-40 Ma, indicating that the eastern part of the Yan-Liao orogenic belt experienced an obvious tectonic seesawing during Meso-Cenozoic time. The eastern part of Liaoning Province (the Liaodong block) uplifted in the early Mesozoic (230-190 Ma) and formed a geological landscape of high mountains, while the western part of the province (the Liaoxi area) subsided relatively and thousand-meter-scale sediments were deposited. During the Cenozoic (30-40 Ma), the Liaoxi area uplifted as a whole, and the Xialiaohe Basin sank intensively. The topographic landscape had a great change: high mountains in the west and east of Liaoning Province and low plains in the central area.