Chemostratigraphy of Flood Basalts in the Garze-Litang Region and Zongza Block: Implications for Western Extension of the Emeishan Large Igneous Province, SW China

The Late Permian Emeishan Large Igneous Province (ELIP) is commonly regarded as being located in the western part of the Yangtze craton, SW China, with an asymmetrical shape and a small area. This area, however, is just a maximum estimation because some parts of the ELIP were not recognized or dismembered and destroyed during the Triassic to Cenozoic tectonism. In this paper, the chemostratigraphical data of the Zongza block, the Garze-Litang belt and the Songpan-Garze block suggest that the Late Permian basalts in these areas have remarkable similarities to the ELIP basalts in petrography and geochemistry. Flood basalts in the Sanjiangkou area are composed of the lower part of the low-Ti (LT) tholeiite and the upper part of the high-Ti (HT) tholeiite, which is the same as the flood basalts on the western margin of the Yangtze craton. Flood basalts in the Zongza and Songpan-Garze areas, which are far from the Yangtze craton, consist of HT tholeiite only. This is the same as the flood basalts within the Y