An introduction to the major NSFC Program 'Reconstruction of East Asian Blocks in Pangea'

Abstract

Pangea is the youngest supercontinent in Earth's history and its main body formed about 250 million years ago. As supported by voluminous evidence from reliable geological, paleomagnetic and paleontological data, configurations of major continental blocks in Pangea have been widely accepted. However, controversy has long surrounded the reconstructions of East Asian blocks in Pangea. So far, most Pangea reconstructions assume that continental blocks in East Asia had never become parts of Pangea before its breakup. In these reconstruction models, configurations of East Asian blocks in Pangea were mainly based on geological and paleomagnetic data before the 1990's but did not fully consider recent data produced by Chinese researchers about collisional mountain belts between continental blocks in East Asia. To precisely reconstruct the East Asian blocks in Pangea, the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) recently set up a Major NSFC Program entitled 'Reconstruction of East Asian Blocks in Pangea'. On the basis of summarizing and integrating previous data, this major program will carry out detailed field-based structural, metamorphic, geochemical, geochronological, paleomagnetic and paleontonological investigations on key segments of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, Central China Orogenic Belt and Paleo-Tethys Belt, which assembled major continental blocks in East Asia, in order to determine the timing and processes of opening and closuring of the Paleo-Asian Ocean, Proto-Tethyan Ocean (Qin-Qi-Kun Ocean) and Paleo-Tethyan Ocean. The program will not only answer where, when and how continental blocks in East Asia were assembled and whether or not they had become parts of Pangea before the breakup of the supercontinent, but will also improve and develop the theory of plate tectonics.