An Analysis of Late Mesozoic Tectonic Evolution Process in Northern China:Based on Basin Sedimentary Records in Northern Taihang Mountains

The northern Taihang Mountains are located at the junction of the Yanshan tectonic belt with the Taihang Mountains belt, and their superimposed basin development process documented the basin trending conversion process from EW to NE during Jurassic to Cretaceous, which is significant for depicting the intracontinental deformation process and its dynamic background during the late Mesozoic in North China. Caogoubu basin and Zhaobai basin located in northern Taihang Mountains were selected as examples in this paper. According to the basic structural framework analysis of basins in combination with isotope chronologic data from magmatic rocks and sedimentology methods which include the detailed analysis of sediment provenance, prototype basin reconstruction and so on, tectonic evolution history of the northern Taihang Mountains during the late Mesozoic can be detected, which includes four stage evolution sequences : (1) nearly N–S contraction and flexural basin development during the late middle Jurassic, (2) nearly N–S low-magnitude extention and crust sources volcanic eruption that occurred in the late Jurassic, (3) NW–SE contraction and foreland basin development from the end of the late Jurassic to the earliest Cretaceous, and (4) NW–SE extension and mantle sources volcanic eruption during the early Cretaceous. The conversion of tectonic regimes is essentially the transformation of its geodynamic systems, and on the context of the East Asia multi-direction convergent tectonic system during the Middle–Late Jurassic, the multi-phases tectonic and basin superposition that occurred in northern Taihang Mountains during the late Mesozoic indicates the conversion process during which the Mogolia–Okhotsk tectonic system graded into the Marginal–Pacific tectonic system.