The development and destruction of foreland structures in the South Yellow Sea basin during the collision between the North China and South Block

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4858812/v1

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The development and destruction of foreland structures in the South Yellow Sea basin during the collision between the North China and South Block

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The South Yellow Sea Basin is the extension of the Yangtze Plate, which is regarded as the main part of Lower Yangtze block. The basin had suffered several episodes of tectonic movements, in which the Indosinian movement caused by the collision of the North and South China Plates had modified critically the basin. The Indosinian movement had vital influence on the structural and sedimentary features, basin modification and evolution of the South Yellow Sea Basin. We had analyzed the deformation and the differences in three secondary tectonic units. In the 2D seismic data, the Indosinian movement had resulted in the opposite thrust structures, in which the Northern Depression developed the strongest deformation. Based on the sediment distribution, deformation strength, formation preservation, we had proposed a new foreland basin model for the South Yellow Sea Basin. The Northern Depression could be recognized as orogenic front, the intense compressional structures caused the largest amount of erosion in three units. The Middle Uplift had foreland depositions developed corresponding to the foredeep of foreland basin. The new model has important scientific significance and application value to promote the investigation and exploration of oil and gas resources in this area.

A foreland basin is generally defined as an elongate trough that formed between a linear contractional orogenic belt and stable craton, caused by the subsidence which is driven by thrust-fold loading during the orogen (Dickinson, 1974; Beaumont, 1981). In the classical foreland basin, there are four discrete depozones named as wedge-top, foredeep, forebulge and back-bulge, with different sediments and structural styles (DeCelles and Giles, 2015) (Fig. 1).

The Qinling-Dabie-Sulu Orogen is the largest ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt in the world, marking the irregular suture between the North and South China blocks (Ames et al., 1993; Hacker et al., 2000, 2006; Li et al., 1993; Li et al., 2017). The orogen extends into the Qianliyan Uplift in the South Yellow Sea (Yue et al., 2011, 2014; Hu et al., 2022; Shinn et al., 2010) (Fig. 2), leading to the conundrum about the tectonic characteristics on the offshore (Chen et al., 2019a, 2019b; Xu et al., 2019). The structures, sedimentary strata and petroleum conditions during the collision between North China and South China plates had confused geologists for decades. Many questions, such as the foreland sediments distribution, how Indosinian tectonic movement influenced the Mesozoic-Paleozoic marine strata, and the discrepancies between the different parts of South Yellow Sea basin are all needed to be discussed (Chen et al., 2019a, 2019b; Chen et al., 2020; Gilder et al., 1999; Xu et al., 2019).

The South Yellow Sea basin (SYSB) is the extension of the Yangtze block, which occupies the main part of Lower Yangtze region (Chen et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2016). The basin is bounded by Qianliyan Uplift to the north and Wunansha Uplift to the south, respectively (Fig. 1). After decades of exploration, no industrial oil-gas current had been found yet (Chen et al., 2019; Yuan et al., 2016, 2018; Cai et al., 2019). Recently, more attentions had been paid to the Paleozoic-Mesozoic marine sediment, according to the comparison of the South Yellow Sea basin with land area of Yangtze block, such as Sichuan Basin and Subei Basin. Nevertheless, the modification during Indosinian and later tectonic movement had shown discrepancies for the enormous Mesozoic orogen and lateral length of Yangtze block.

The paper has synthesized structures, strata and geophysics in the South Yellow Sea basin and around, to confirm the development and the destruction of foreland basin during the collision between the North China and South China plates.

The SYSB is the main part of the Lower Yangtze Subblock, which connects with Subei Basin onshore (Chen et al., 2019). The offshore SYSB consists of the North Depression, Middle Uplift and South Depression (Chen et al., 2016) (Fig. 1). The SYSB has developed Sinian to Triassic marine sedimentary rocks and Mesozoic-Cenozoic terrigenous sedimentary rocks with Archean-Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic basement (Gao, 2010; Li et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2019).

The Jinning Movement, Caledonian Movement, Indosinian-Early Yanshan Movement had shaped the configuration of marine depositions in SYSB. The Jinning Movement had shaped the basement, the Caledonian movement had resulted in the South China plate by the suture between Yangtze and Cathaysia blocks. The Indosinian movement and early Yanshanian movement cannot be distinguished, which had caused the most intensive deformation in the SYSB (Xu et al., 2019). Besides that, the later inversion structures had mainly developed along the Indosinian structures (Shinn et al., 2015).

This paper mainly focuses on the basin evolution during Indosinian-early Yanshanian movement, especially on structural differences between different secondary units, further to discuss the foreland basin structures and basin-mountain relationship. The new seismic profiles had been used for interpreting the structures developed.

On the land area of Lower Yangtze block, the early Triassic syn-orogenic strata had shown various thickness, with the depocenter locating along the Yangtze River. According to the seismic data and field geology, an opposite thrust system can be recognized, which can be subdivided into root belt, middle belt, front belt in the north and south respectively (Hu et al. 2022, Zhu, 1998) (Fig. 2). The configuration caused the foreland deposits developing along the Yangtze River (Hu et al. 2022, Zhu, 1998; Du et al., 2007).

The opposite thrust system similarly developed in the offshore (Fig. 2). In the SYSB, according to the seismic interpretation, the T8 interface is the Indosinian boundary, which subdivided the terrestrial strata above and marine strata below. In the regional seismic profiles, the nearly E-W faults had controlled the depression-uplift distribution in the SYSB, which was mainly caused by Indosinian collision. In general, the Northern Depression had developed the most intense thrust structures. These thrust structures had propagated from north to south, corresponding to the strongest the compressional stress in the north. The thrust faults extend as anti-shovel-shape into various detachment surfaces, forming different structural associations. In the land area, 7 main detachment surfaces at most can be recognized, illustrating relative homogeneity in the marine facies strata (Shen et al., 1988; Ding et al., 2016). In contrast, the detachment surfaces in SYSB only develop at the top of basement and the bottom of Silurian Formation. Most faults had merged into these two detachments (Fig. 3).

Laterally, the SYSB mainly developed NEE-SWW and NW-SE faults, with obvious distribution discrepancy from west to east (Fig. 5). In the west of Northern Depression, the faults are mainly NEE strike, while the faults turn into EW or NWW strikes in the east. In the east of Middle Uplift, the NW faults develop more extensively. While in the Southern Uplift, NW faults turn into EW faults from west to east. Therefore, the distribution of Indosinian faults were affected by the collision between North China and South China plates. Due to the bend of structural lines, we may speculate that the Sulu-Qianliyan orogen also turns E-W direction into the Imjinjiang Belt in the Korea.

The structural styles in the SYSB include thrust block, broad folds, detachment structures, and backthrusts (Fig. 3). No intense structures, such as strata overturned by thrust, incline fold, could be found in the SYSB, which is different with the land area of the Lower Yangtze. In general, the structural intensity had weakened from west to east, with the N-S width getting wider from onshore to offshore, which was explained by extrude tectonic by some researchers (Shang et al., 2002).

After all, it had reached a consensus that an opposite thrust system developed during Indosinian movement, with the middle area as a stable part for foreland deposition. The discrepancy from the west to the east was mainly caused by the strike change of Sulu-Qianliyan Orogen. However, it is strange that no plenty of foreland depositions had been preserved in the SYSB, even along the Middle Uplift, which was the depocenter corresponding to the land area during the foreland basin development.

During the collision between North and South China plates, the manifestation of the collision in SYSB varied severely in consideration of strata denudation, structures and differential uplifting. The differences may conclude a particular foreland prototype basin in the SYSB.

According to the seismic profiles in SYSB, the thickness and distribution of marine facies strata show great variation. In the Northern Depression, the north, the upper part of marine strata (Devonian-lower Triassic) had been eroded away mostly during the collision and later exhumation (Fig. 3). While in the Middle Uplift, the well-preserved Sinian-Lower Triassic keep great potential for effective source rocks. In the Southern Depression, the strata-preserved condition falls between the Northern Depression and Middle Uplift. These differences indicated that the SYSB had experienced distinguished depression and uplift progress in three sub-units.

Compared with marine facies deposition, the terrestrial strata had shown much more discrepancies during Indosinian-Early Yanshannian period. The most remarkable characteristics are revealed in the Middle Uplift that no Middle Triassic-Cretaceous had been identified, with Cenozoic strata covering the marine strata directly. On the contrary, the Northern and Southern Depression had developed Cretaceous extensional fault depression, inheriting on the previous Indosinian compressional structures. Especially, in the northeastern sag of Northern Depression, Jurassic terrestrial deposition developed along the northern boundary with a thickness of over 2km identified by the RC-2-1 well, which had not been discovered in other parts of the basin (Gao et al., 2014, 2015).

Since the North and South China collision caused the cease of marine facies deposition, the preservation of marine strata and distribution of transitional facies deposition were controlled by the uplift and bury progress induced by the compressional structures. Plenty of evidences would confirm the differential uplift denudation. Based on sonic differential time of CSDP-2, ~ 1200-1400m denudation of Indosinian unconformity in Middle Uplift had been deduced (Pang et al. 2019). Besides, according to the basin modelling result, over 2000 m denudation can be concluded in the Middle Uplift. Previous researchers had taken for granted that the North China-South China collision had leaded to the foreland deposition, no detailed research had focus on the differences between the subunits and even the discrepancies with the land area of Lower Yangtze block (Zhang et al., 2015; Feng et al. 2008). However, complete marine deposition in the Middle Uplift is also beyonding the traditional understanding, for the Indosinian intense contraction must cause the deficiency of lower-Triassic or even the upper Paleozoic, which should be similar with Northern Depression. Comparatively, the Northern Depression seemed to be affected by Indosinian movement most intensely, exhibiting a gap in geological record between lower Paleozoic and Cretaceous.

The compression extents as well demonstrate huge variation in three units. In the SYSB, several structural cross balanced sections had been restored for investigating the amount of contraction during collision progress (Fig. 5). First, in the east-west direction, the distinguished features show the middle part of the basin show a larger amount of shorting rate than the western and eastern parts of SYSB. Nearly 40% shorting rate at maximum had been restored in the marine facies strata. The western and eastern sections illustrate maximum ~ 33–35% shorting rates.

Secondly, the shorting rates get smaller from north to south obviously. Generally, the Northern Depression gets a ~ 33%-39% shorting rates in marine strata, which are much larger than those in the Middle Uplift and Southern Uplift. In addition, the amount of shorting concentrates on the main faults, such as the boundaries between different units, especially on the northern boundary of Northern Depression. Another manifestation tells us that the Southern Depression and Middle Uplift display similar deformation strength.

The opposite thrust belt in SYSB also displays a stronger compression in the north. In the Northern Depression, the Indosinian faults mainly detached into the top of basement, which cause a thin-skin structures. The detachment also plays as the boundary of metamorphic materials in the deep during the exhumation.

All these discrepancies in SYSB had enlightened the shaping of the basin was mainly due to collision to the north. The Northern Depression to the north shows a unique position during the collision, for the intense thrust and huge denudation of marine deposition. Besides that, the collision belt showed obvious inhomogeneity along strike. The strike of faults had obvious diversion, which would be controlled by strike of boundary faults (Fig. 4). Therefore, we emphasize the significance of boundary faults between different subunits, which had controlled the framework and evolution of prototype basins in each epoch.

Due to the structural characteristics of SYSB during Indosinian movement, we can recover the foreland basin framework and the evolution progress. Feng et al. (2008) had concluded that the collision leaded to the foreland basin during Late Triassic-Middle Jurassic, then the long-time uplift had reserved little foreland depositions during Late Mesozoic. This understanding regarded the basin as a whole without considering the internal diversity in SYSB.

Previous researchers had used foreland basin system to match the basin units. In this model, the Qianliyan Uplift was regarded as Orogenic wedge top with a lot of south-verging thrust. The NE sag of Northern Depression with a large thickness of Jurassic deposition was regarded as the foredeep belt, while back-uplift belt located at the north of Southern Depression and the south of Middle Uplift. However, the model seems to match constrainedly the basin system, with some inconsistences in the SYSB which cannot be explained in our new seismic profiles. No reflectors of south-verging thrusts can be clearly identified in Qianliyan Uplift, in which some intermittent reflectance signatures may be interpreted as metamorphic materials. In addition, the syn-orogenic depositions distribute limitedly in the Yantai Depression, which cannot be the foredeep for the whole orogen in the sea.

The basin modelling and vitrinite reflectance results show a large amount of uplift and erosion in the Northern Depression during Indosinian Movement. In addition, the seismic profiles only represent current basin framework, which cannot be used for deciding the conditions at ~ 240Ma. Finally, the intense thrust in Northern Depression and opposite thrust belt in SYSB also exclude the classic foreland framework in the basin.

Based on the points above, this paper had proposed a new view which is quite different from traditional model in SYSB during collision (Fig. 6). In our model, we had proposed that Middle Uplift was located at the foredeep with a large thickness of foreland sedimentation. While the Northern Depression developed strong compressional deformation, representing the orogen wedge may extend into the Northern Depression. In the south, the Southern Uplift may play the part of back-uplift belt in which the strata condition falls in between Northern Depression and Middle Uplift.

It could be concluded that the “one uplift in two depressions” framework had not confirmed during the North China and South China collided. Before the Indosinian movement, the SYSB kept in an epicontinental sea environment. The Indosinian collision had altered the distribution of sags and uplifts.

Through the structural characteristics, uplift-burial progress, and deposition distribution, we had concluded that the foreland depositions mainly developed in the middle part of SYSB, corresponding to the Triassic strata locating between the Yangtze River. Only if the foreland depositions develop along the middle part of SYSB, the Middle Uplift can preserve relatively complete marine facies deposition.

(1) The SYSB developed a foreland basin during the Indosinian Movement. The opposite thrust ensured the formation of thrust belt-foreland sediment accumulation.

(2) The Northern Depression to the north shows a much more characteristics of orogenic front, the intense compressional structures caused the largest amount of erosion in three units.

(3) In our new foreland model, the Middle Uplift had foreland depositions developed corresponding to the foredeep of foreland basin. And the Northern Depression demonstrates strongest structures which mean the foreland thrust belt.

Author Contribution

M.X. and J.W.C. wrote the main manuscript textH.L. and H.J. prepared figures 1-2All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Acknowledgment:

This work was financially supported by the Basic Science (Natural Science) Research Projects in Higher Education Institutions in Jiangsu Province(23KJD170002, 23KJD440001, 22KJB130008), Natural Science Research of Jiangsu College of Engineering and Technology (GYKY20213,GYKY20235), Nantong Social Livelihood Science and Technology Plan Project (JC2023111, JCZ2022116, MSZ2022191, MSZ2023108).

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No competing interests reported.

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You are reading this latest preprint version

The development and destruction of foreland structures in the South Yellow Sea basin during the collision between the North China and South Block

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Abstract

Figures

1. Introduction

2. Geological background

3. Structural discrepancies in the South Yellow Sea basin

4. Differences between sub-units in SYSB

5. Foreland framework of SYSB during collision

6. Conclusion

Declarations

Author Contribution

Acknowledgment:

References

Additional Declarations

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