Geochronology and geochemistry of Early Cretaceous volcanic rocks from the Baiyingaolao Formation in the central Great Xing'an Range, NE China, and its tectonic implications

• Volcanic rocks from Baiyingaolao Formation are formed between 134 and 130 Ma.
• The volcanic rocks are highly fractionated I-type igneous rocks.
• The volcanic rocks are formed in an extensional environment induced by lithospheric delamination.
• Xing'an Terrain and Erguna Terrain have different tectonic affinities and histories.

We undertook zircon U–Pb dating and geochemical analyses of volcanic rocks from the Baiyingaolao Formation in the central Great Xing'an Range, northeastern China, with an aim to determine their age, petrogenesis and sources, which are important for understanding the Late Mesozoic tectonic evolution of the eastern section of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt. Lithologically, the Baiyingaolao Formation is composed mainly of rhyolites and rhyolitic tuffs, with minor trachy dacites. The zircons from three rhyolitic tuffs and two rhyolites are euhedral–subhedral in shape, display fine-scale oscillatory growth zoning and have high Th/U ratios (0.72–2.60), indicating a magmatic origin. The results of LA–ICP-MS zircon U–Pb dating indicate that the volcanic rocks from the Baiyingaolao Formation in the study area formed during the Early Cretaceous time with ages of 134–130 Ma. Petrological and geochemical characteristics of these volcanic rocks suggest that they are all highly fractionated I-type igneous rocks, and their parental magmas were likely derived from the partial melting of lower crustal materials with plagioclase, hornblende and apatite as the residual phases. In addition, the volcanics sampled in this paper, tectonically located in the Xing'an terrain, have high initial 176Hf/177Hf ratios (0.282770–0.283035) and positive εHf(t) values (2.42–11.96), combined with young Hf two-stage model ages of 1134–541 Ma, reflecting that the crustal growth of the Xing'an terrain occurred during Neoproterozoic and Phanerozoic times. These data, combined with previous studies on the contemporaneous magma-tectonic activities in NE China, suggest that the generation of the Early Cretaceous volcanic rocks in the central Great Xing'an Range was related to the lithospheric delamination caused by the subduction of the Paleo-Pacific plate.

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