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Early middle Miocene tectonic uplift of the northwestern part of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau evidenced by geochemical and mineralogical records in the western Tarim Basin

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Abstract

The Tarim Basin in western China has been receiving continuous marine to lacustrine deposits during the Cenozoic as a foreland basin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Clay mineralogy and geochemical proxy data from these sedimentary archives can shed light on climate and tectonic trends. Here we report on an abrupt mineralogical and weathering shift at 17 Ma ± 1 Myr in the Miocene Qimugan section in the northwestern part of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The rapid shift involves decreasing trends of chemical weathering indices, Rb/Sr and Ba/Sr ratios, and of minor and immobile elements with respect to upper crust composition as well as increasing trends of Na/Al and Na/Ti ratios, smectite, chlorite, and calcite contents. We ascribe these trends to changing source rocks due to uplift of the northern part of the QTP leading to exposures of younger intrusive bodies and older gneisses, schists, and carbonate-rich rocks. These uplifts potentially caused regional aridification reducing chemical weathering. The dating is indirect via magnetostratigraphically dated ostracod biostratigraphy and detrital zircon chronology and currently not good enough to compare the shift accurately in time with the onset of the global middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) at 16.5 Ma. Nevertheless, regional tectonics seem to have dominated over global climate as the warmer MMCO is expected to have increased weathering indices and decreased Na/Al and Na/Ti, rather than the observed reverse trends.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely appreciate the editor in chief Wolf-Christian Dullo, the editor Prof. Wenjiao Xiao, Prof. Yuanbao Wu, Tiuri Konijnendijk, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are grateful for grants from the Key Project Foundation of China Geological Survey (No. 1212011121261), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41072030 and 41272053), and the Independent Research Project Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan (No. GKZ13Y657). C.W. acknowledges the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) for financial and Prof. Lucas J. Lourens for logistical support during his visit to Utrecht University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Chaowen Wang, Hanlie Hong, Ke Yin, Bowen Song, Yadong Xu, Junliang Ji & Kexin Zhang

  2. Stratigraphy/Paleontology, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, 3808 TA, The Netherlands

    Chaowen Wang & Hemmo A. Abels

  3. Geosciences Department, University of Wisconsin - Parkside, Kenosha, WI, 53141-2000, USA

    Zhaohui Li

  4. Faculty of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, People’s Republic of China

    Zhaohui Li, Kai Cao, Ke Yin & Kexin Zhang

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  1. Chaowen Wang
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  2. Hanlie Hong
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Correspondence to Chaowen Wang.

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Wang, C., Hong, H., Abels, H.A. et al. Early middle Miocene tectonic uplift of the northwestern part of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau evidenced by geochemical and mineralogical records in the western Tarim Basin. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 105, 1021–1037 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1212-0

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