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Geochemistry of early Paleozoic alkali dyke swarms in south Qinling and its geological significance

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Abstract

The early Paleozoic alkali dyke swarms in the Ziyang-Langao areas of south Qinling are characterized by bimodal volcanic association. They show the patterns of enriched LREE with high fractionation of light and heavy REE and enrichment of incompatible elements in the primitive mantle-normalized spider-diagrams with peaks of Ba and Nb and valleys of Pb and Sr. The ratios of Ta/Hf are larger than 0.3 and those of Th/Ta less than 1.6, indicating that they were derived from enriched mantle sources closely related to plume. The occurrence of alkali dyke swarm demonstrates an extensional event of crust resulting from deep plume activity in the Qinling orogeny during early Paleozoic. The rifting extension could not continue due to the short activity of plume. Consequently, no new oceanic basin was formed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Northwest University Continental Dynamics, Ministry of Education and Department of Geology, Northwest University, 710069, Xi’an, China

    Chengli Zhang, Shan Gao, Guowei Zhang, Xiaoming Liu & Zaiping Yu

  2. State Key Laboratory for Mineral Deposits Research, Nanjing University, 210093, Nanjing, China

    Chengli Zhang

  3. Department of Geochemistry, China University of Geosciences, 430074, Wuhan, China

    Shan Gao

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  1. Chengli Zhang
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  2. Shan Gao
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  4. Xiaoming Liu
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  5. Zaiping Yu
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Correspondence to Chengli Zhang.

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Zhang, C., Gao, S., Zhang, G. et al. Geochemistry of early Paleozoic alkali dyke swarms in south Qinling and its geological significance. Sci. China Ser. D-Earth Sci. 46, 1292–1306 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02883254

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02883254

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