Continental‐Margin Structure of Northeast China and its Adjacent Areas

Abstract The continental margin of Northeast China and its adjacent areas is composed of two tectonic belts. The inner belt is a collage made up of fragments resulting from breakup of an old land with the north part related to the evolution of the Palaeo‐Asian Ocean and the south part to the evolution of the Palaeo‐Pacific Ocean. The outer belt is a Mesozoic terrane, which is a mélange made up of fragments of the Late Palaeozoic to Early Mesozoic oceanic crust and the Late Mesozoic trench accumulations.There existed another ocean—the Palaeo‐Pacific Ocean during the period from the closing of the Palaeo‐Asian Ocean to the opening of the modern Pacific Ocean or from the Devonian to Jurassic, and the ocean‐floor spreading of the Palaeo‐Pacific Ocean led to the formation of the above‐mentioned tectonic belts. The development of the strike‐slip fault system after the Late Jurassic and the formation of an epicontinental volcano‐plutonic rock belt in the Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary are attributed to the interaction between the modern Pacific plate and the Eurasian plate.