Diverse exhumation of the Mesozoic tectonic belt within the Yangtze Plate, China, determined by apatite fission-track thermochronology

New and mostly published apatite fission-track (AFT) data are compiled to reveal the exhumation of the Mesozoic tectonic belt (MTB) within the Yangtze Plate, China. New AFT ages ranging from 51 ± 3 to 108 ± 5 Ma with mean measured track lengths between 11.8 ± 1.6 and 12.8 ± 2.0 μm, are obtained for the bedrock samples collected along a southeast to northwest transect across the MTB, including the exceptional Huangling Dome in the northern Yangtze Plate. The diverse, involving the first rapid, following by a slow, and the final accelerating, cooling and inferred exhumation from the Late Mesozoic to the Cenozoic have been identified in the study region based on the AFT data and modeling. The onset of exhumation is earlier in the Huangling Dome than in the southeastern and northwestern MTB, and in the southeastern MTB than in the northwestern MTB. Similarly, the final stage of accelerating exhumation seemed to start earlier in the Huangling Dome than in the southeastern and northwestern MTB, but in the northwestern MTB than in the southeastern MTB. The diverse exhumation of the MTB should have been attributed to the far-field effect of the Pacific plate subduction in the Cretaceous to the east, and to the eastward and southeastward tectonic escape from the Tibetan plateau imposed by the India-Eurasia collision since ∼55 Ma to the west.