Abstract
Asia is a composite continent formed by the accretion of crustal blocks1–3. A likely sequence of events is that Siberia collided with a Kazakhstan block which together then collided with Europe along the Urals in Permo-Triassic times2. This was followed by the sucessive accretion of various blocks of south and east Asia to Siberia, culminating in the collision of India with Asia during the Cenozoic. Palaeomagnetic data have already demonstrated that the Kolyma and Sikhote Alin blocks of eastern Asia collided with the main continent along the late Mesozoic fold belts of Verkhoyansk and Sikhote Alin4. Furthermore, results from the Malay peninsula5 and Japan6 suggest that South-east Asia and Japan were situated near the Equator in Permian times and were therefore separated from the Asian continent. We report here some palaeomagnetic results from the Permian of the Sino-Korean and Yangtze blocks of China that show they were also situated near the Equator, were not in their present relationship to one another and were widely separated from Siberia.
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McElhinny, M., Embleton, B., Ma, X. et al. Fragmentation of Asia in the Permian. Nature 293, 212–216 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/293212a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/293212a0
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