Provenance and hinterland exhumation from LA-ICP-MS zircon U–Pb and fission-track double dating of Cretaceous sediments in the Jianghan Basin, Yangtze block, central China

Crystallization and cooling ages obtained from fission-track and U–Pb double dating of single zircons using LA-ICP-MS from five samples of Cretaceous Jianghan Basin strata, Yangtze block, central China, refine sediment sources and source-area exhumation. The Huangling basement massif of the northwestern Yangtze Craton and the Qinling-Dabie Orogen along the northern margin of the Yangtze block provided the U–Pb zircon-age populations. Two rapid cooling events at ca. 840–800 and ~ 206–151 to 43 Ma existed in the Huangling massif and the major exhumation period of the Qinling-Dabie Orogen at 221–195 Ma. The important tectonothermal event at 221–195 Ma of the Qinling-Dabie Orogen was characterized by the collision between the south China and the north China block and overprinted the whole Qinling-Dabie Orogen and the north Yangtze block. Together with the published geochronology, our data constrain the paleogeography of eastern China: (i) The Upper Triassic–Lower Jurassic strata have their sources in the Qinling-Dabie Orogen and the Cathaysia and Yangtze basement of the South China Block. (ii) In the Middle Jurassic, the Sichuan, Jianghan, Hengyang, and Mayang basins formed a large composite basin with identical provenance from the Qinling-Dabie Orogen and the Cathaysia. (iii) Since the Late Cretaceous, the Jiangnan Orogen and a mountain belt along the Pacific coast constituted important topographic boundaries in southern China. Within the Jianghan Basin, the maximum depositional ages of the Shimen, Wulong, Luojingtan, and Honghuatao Formations are approximately 145.53 ± 11.23, 113.09 ± 11.37, 96.00 ± 9.29, and 89.43 ± 9.29 Ma, respectively. This study demonstrates the feasibility of LA-ICP-MS zircon fission track and U–Pb double dating to refine the identification of sediment sources and determine the exhumation of source areas.