Tectonic and metallogenic evolution of northeast Asia: Key to regional understanding

Abstract

The vast, mountainous terranes of Northeast Asia hold the key to the tectonic and metallogenic evolution of a major and geologically complicated region of the world. This region stretches from the Ural Mountains and the Arctic Islands of central Russia to the Kamchatka volcanic arc in the Russian Far East. The region also includes northern Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan. The tectonic development of the region is recorded in a series of cratons, craton margins, oceanic plates, active rifts, and orogenic collages of the present-day Northeast Asia continent. The collages consist of tectonostratigraphic terranes that are composed of fragments of igneous arcs, accretionary-wedge and subduction-zone complexes, passive continental margins, and cratons. The tectonostratigraphic terranes are overlapped by continental-margin-arc and sedimentary-basin assemblages. The tectonic history of cratons, craton margins, oceanic plates, terranes, and overlap assemblages is complex due to extensional dispersion and translation during strike-slip faulting that occurred subparallel to continental margins.