Late Paleozoic Sequence-Stratigraphic Frameworks and Sea Level Changes in Dianqiangui Basin and Its Adjacent Areas with Systematic Revision of Regional Unconformities

摘要

The formation process of the Dianqiangui basin, a special basin, occurred after the Caledonian orogeny, in the south of Guizhou, the west of Guangxi and the southeast of Yunnan, experienced three periods: it began in the Devonian, persisted in the Carboniferous, and became fiercer in the Permian. Controlled by syndepositional fault-zones, varieties of isolated carbonate platforms, large and small, were developed in the background of a deep-water basin, namely, an inter-platform ditch. And a special paleogeographical Late Paleozoic pattern marked by “platform-basin-hill-trough” was produced in both the Dianqiangui basin and its adjacent areas. Affected by regional tectonic activities and the global changes in the sea level, the platform carbonates and coal measures superimposed each other cyclically on the attached platform. The reef-building on the isolated platform and the margin of the attached platform corresponds to the development of the shale succession in the deep-water basin. All of these elementary characteristics reflect a regular and sophisticated filling succession of the Dianqiangui basin, a result of the dual controls of the regionally tectonic activities and the eustacy. Based on the two elementary features of the third-order sequences, i.e. the regularity of sedimentary-facies succession in space and the simultaneity of environmental changes in time, 25 third-order sequences could be discerned in the Upper Paleozoic strata in the Dianqiangui basin and its adjacent areas. On the basis of the two kinds of facies-changing surfaces and the two kinds of diachronisms in stratigraphic records, the regional Late Paleozoic sequence-stratigraphic framework in the Dianqiangui basin and its adjacent areas can be established. There are two types of facies-changing surfaces and two types of diachronisms in stratigraphic records: the static type, a result of the change in sedimentary facies in space, and the dynamic type, a result of the change in time. These two types of facies-changing surfaces led to the generation of the two types of diachronisms: the diachronism of facies-changing surfaces that was formed by the static facies-changing surfaces, and the diachronism of punctuated surfaces that was formed by the dynamic facies-changing surfaces. The two types of facies-changing surfaces and the two types of diachronisms in stratigraphic records are the key to the establishment of the sequence-stratigraphic framework. The sequence boundaries could be divided geologically into four types: tectonic unconformity, sedimentary unconformity, drowned unconformity and their correlative surfaces. All of these four types can be further grouped into exposed punctuated surfaces and deepened punctuated surfaces. The tectonic unconformity is similar to Type Ⅰ sequence boundary, and the sedimentary unconformity is similar to Type Ⅱ sequence boundary defined by Vail et al.. In terms of sequence stratigraphy, the tectonic unconformities of the Ziyun movement, the Qiangui epeirogeny and the Dongwu revolution as well as the drowned unconformity in the transitional period from the Permian to the Triassic can be systematically defined and their geological characteristics are briefly presented.