Sedimentary Environments of the Cangfanggou Group in Junggar Basin, Xinjiang, in Response to Climate and Tectonic Regime

AbstractDetailed studies of petrology, palaeocurrent direction, palaeogeomorphology and palaeohydrodynamics have been conducted for the Permian‐Triassic Cangfanggou Group in the foredeep of the Bogda Mountains in the southeastern Junggar Basin, Xinjiang. Sedimentary environments and facies of alluvial fans and pebbly braided rivers, sandy braided rivers, meandering rivers, low‐sinuosity rivers, swamps and fresh‐water lakes are recognized in the group. Climate and tectonics of source areas strongly controlled the evolution of the sedimentary environments and facies in the foredeep. The block faulting in the Bogda Mountains increased the ground slope, which led to a drastic increase in the grain size of the sediments. Humid climate, being beneficial to plant growth, would provide protection of channel banks and at the same time weaken chemical weathering in the source area, thus large amounts of clay materials are available for the formation of clay plugs. As a result, stable banks and meandering river belts are formed. Conversely, increasing aridity would strengthen mechanical weathering and reduce the number of clay plugs. Besides, plants would diminish gradually and channels would become more mobile. In this case the decrease of transported clay materials would reduce the stability of the bank and result in a wider and shallower channel. Therefore, humid climate is beneficial to the formation of meandering rivers even if there is strong block faulting in the source areas and the ground slope is very large. As aridity further increases, plants would diminish and vanish at last, the meandering rivers prevalent under humid climate conditions would be transformed to low‐sinuosity rivers even if the ground is gentle and the land is tectonically stable. And as the climate became more arid and the source area uplifted intensively to provide more sedimentary materials, low‐sinuosity rivers would be transformed to braided ones quickly, and wedge‐like sedimentary bodies of the braided rivers would then advance towards the lower reaches. The increasingly arid climate led to prevailing mechanical and diminishing plant protection to the banks. Both active tectonic regime and humid climate resulted in very shallow and mobile channels, i.e. a braided river system.The climate plays an important role in the evolution of rivers and lakes. The sinuosity and braiding parameters of channels are a result of complex interaction between climate (clay material supply, plant protection of the banks, flood events and so on) and tectonic regime (lithology of the source area, slopes and so on). Both factors can be estimated by sedimentological studies in the foothill belt.