Early to Middle Jurassic sedimentation within the northern Sichuan Basin in response to exhumation of the South Qinling orogenic belt, central China

The northern Sichuan Basin of central China is an important region for investigating the continent-continent convergence that resulted from the closure of the Palaeo-Tethys Ocean. The Early-Middle Jurassic sediments of this basin record the palaeogeography, palaeoenvironments and tectonic evolution of the southern Qinling orogenic belt, especially the Dabashan thrust belt. Detailed sedimentological investigations, coupled with provenance analyses using zircon U-Pb geochronology, demonstrate that during Early Jurassic times, conglomerate megafan facies extended across the northern Sichuan Basin into the Micangshan area deformed by South Dabashan thrusting and reached even as far as the Mianlue suture belt. These megafan deposits were mainly reworked from the Silurian sediments of the North Dabashan thrust belt (also called the South Qinling orogenic belt), north of the Mianlue suture. These conglomerates record the initial thrust-driven uplift and exhumation of the Qinling orogenic belt that rapidly followed the diachronous closure of the Mianlue oceanic basin. Moreover, our results show that the detrital materials of meandering stream, lacustrine and braided river delta facies that accumulated in the Middle Jurassic mainly originated from the southern Qinling orogenic belt, Mianlue suture zone and northern South China block, suggesting the southward progradation of the Dabashan fold-thrust belt onto the northern Yangtze block and the southward migration of the basin centre. These findings support a model in which the Early to Middle Jurassic evolution of the northern Sichuan Basin may have been triggered by East Asian convergence.