Onset of the North-South Gravity Lineament, NE China: Constraints of Late Jurassic bimodal volcanic rocks

The North-South Gravity Lineament (NSGL) is an important geophysical boundary within NE China. Gravity anomaly, heat flow, crustal and lithospheric thickness, terrain and altitude all change dramatically across the NSGL. However, the timing of onset of the NSGL remains enigmatic, and the Mesozoic lithospheric thinning mechanism to the east of the NSGL is still unclear in NE China. Here we study a Late Jurassic bimodal volcanic suite located on the NSGL including N-MORB-like basalts, which constrains the initial formation of the NSGL. The bimodal volcanic rocks consist mainly of basalts and basaltic andesites with subordinate rhyolites. Our results show that the bimodal volcanic rocks are products of crust-asthenosphere interaction. Calculations indicate that lithospheric thicknesses in NE China have significantly changed from ~90–100 km in the west to 49–62 km in the east since the Late Mesozoic. The variation of lithospheric thicknesses on both sides of the NSGL could be ascribed to lithospheric delamination. Zircons from the bimodal volcanic rocks yield Late Jurassic ages of 147 Ma, nearly synchronous with the onset of the Songliao Basin and marking the start of extensional tectonics in NE China. Combined with previous studies, we confirm that the delamination induced by Paleo-Pacific subduction gave rise to the formation of the NSGL, which initiated at the Late Jurassic in NE China.