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The Taihua group on the southern margin of the North China craton: further insights from U–Pb ages and Hf isotope compositions of zircons

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Abstract

The "Taihua Group" is a collective term for a series of old terranes scattered along the southern margin of the North China Craton. The timing of formation and thermal overprinting of the Taihua Group have long been contentious, and its relationship with the Qinling orogenic belt has been unclear. In this study, new data from integrated in-situ U–Pb dating and Hf isotope analysis of zircons from an amphibolite (from the Xiong’ershan terrane) and a biotite gneiss (from the Lantian-Xiaoqinling terrane) indicate that the Upper Taihua Group formed during the Paleoproterozoic (2.3–2.5 Ga) and thus was originally part of the southern edge of North China Craton, detached during the Mesozoic Qinling orogeny and displaced about 100 km north from its original location. This suggests that the Taihua Group became part of the tectonic terrane associated with the Qinling orogeny and now forms part of the overthrust basement section of the Qinling belt. Before the Qinling orogeny, the Taihua Group was metamorphosed at 2.1 Ga. The initial Hf-isotope compositions of zircons, together with positive εNd(t) values for the whole-rocks, imply that the original magmas were derived from a juvenile source with some assimilation of an Archean crustal component.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Zhu Y. for help with zircon U-Pb dating, and Tang H. F. for help with zircon Hf isotope analysis. Two anonymous reviewers and editor Johann Raith provided very helpful comments. This work was supported by National Major Basic Research Project (2006CB403508) to XSXU and Australian Research Council Discovery grants to WLG and SYO’R. This is publication 595 of the ARC National Key Centre for Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (www.es.mq.edu/GEMOC).

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  1. State Key Laboratory for Mineral Deposits Research, Department of Earth Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Xisheng Xu, Xi Ma & Zhenyu He

  2. ARC National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Sydney, Australia

    Xisheng Xu, William L. Griffin & Suzanne Y. O’Reilly

  3. Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710069, China

    Chengli Zhang

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  1. Xisheng Xu
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  2. William L. Griffin
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Correspondence to Xisheng Xu.

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Xu, X., Griffin, W.L., Ma, X. et al. The Taihua group on the southern margin of the North China craton: further insights from U–Pb ages and Hf isotope compositions of zircons. Miner Petrol 97, 43–59 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00710-009-0062-5

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