The Carboniferous at the Northern Foot of the Dabie Mountains and Its Tectonic Implications

In the Qinling orogenic belt. oceanic crust originated in the Early Palaeozoic. while the product of conti-nental collision appeared as late as after the Triassic. The Late Palaeozoic records there are of major impor-tance for understanding the tectonic regime at that time. The Carboniferous and even Permian sequences andthe distribution of sedimentary facies in northern Huaiyang indicate that the rocks were formed in a large basinopening towards the south. Regional stratigraphic correlation shows that the interior of the Qinling orogenicbelt was a sea trough lying between the Yangtze and North China plates in the middle part of the LatePalaeozoic. With subsequent northward migration of the South China Sea, the two seas were connected witheach other. Both the melanges and the Dabie block ia the eastern sector of the Qinling belt were formed in theMesozoic ?.