Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous Northern Qaidam Basin, NW China: Implications for the earliest Cretaceous intracontinental tectonism

Formation of Mesozoic western China, which was dominated by tectonic amalgamation along its southern margin and associated intracontinental tectonisms, holds a key for interpreting the succedent Cenozoic evolution. This paper presents new data including lithology, sedimentary facies, stratigraphic contact, seismic interpretation and paleo-structures within the Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous strata in the northern Qaidam Basin, NW China. These data all account for a contractional tectonic deformation in the earliest Cretaceous. The South Qilian Shan, according to the sedimentary features and provenance analysis, reactivated and exhumated during the deformation, controlling the deposition of the Lower Cretaceous sequences. A simplified model for the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous paleogeography and tectonics of the northern Qaidam Basin is accordingly proposed. The results also support a ∼25° clockwise rotation of the Qaidam Basin since the Early Cretaceous and a more accurate Mesozoic evolution process for the basin. This earliest Cretaceous deformation, associated with the reactivation of the South Qilian Shan at the time, are part of the intracontinental tectonisms in central Asia during the Mesozoic, and probably driven by both the closure of the Mongol-Okhostk Ocean to the north and the collision of the Lhasa and the Qiangtang blocks to the south.

► We present new geological data within the Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous strata.
► A contractional event occurred in the earliest Cretaceous, northern Qaidam Basin.
► The South Qilian Shan reactivated and exhumated during the event.
► The Qaidam Basin rotated ∼25° clockwise since the Early Cretaceous.
► The geodynamic cause is from both the south and the north.