Provenance Variability of the Triassic Strata in the Turpan‐Hami Basin: Detrital Zircon Record of Indosinian Tectonic Reactivation in the Eastern Tianshan

Abstract

The Triassic strata in the Turpan-Hami Basin potentially chronicled the missing sedimentary record of Indosinian tectonic evolution in the Eastern Tianshan. In this study, we conducted detrital zircon U-Pb geochronological analyses on subsurface Triassic samples collected from the Turpan-Hami Basin to unravel sedimentary response of Indosinian tectonic reactivation and its geodynamics. The detrital zircon age spectra of the Triassic samples are quite different, reflecting significant provenance variability. The zircon grains in the Lower Triassic sample were mainly from the Central Tianshan, while the Jueluotag acted as a minor provenance. By contrast, the Late Paleozoic rocks in Jueluotag act as the main provenance for the Middle-Upper Triassic samples, while the Central Tianshan acted as a minor provenance. Furthermore, zircon grains in the Middle Triassic sample were mainly from the Permian rocks in Jueluotag, while Indosinian strike-slipdriven rapid exhumation brought deeper Carboniferous rocks of Jueluotag as an important age population for the Upper Triassic sample. The inter-sample variability of age spectra of the Triassic samples provides sedimentary evidence for Indosinian tectonic reactivation in the Eastern Tianshan and its periphery, which could be attributed to differential exhumation of different sources driven by coeval strike-slip tectonics along deep faults. The Indosinian tectonic behavior in the Eastern Tianshan, which is characterized by partial melting of the pre-thickened crust and strike-slip deformation, acted as a far-field respond to the coeval continental accretion occurring along the southern Eurasian margin. Additionally, our new detrital zircon data, together with previously published data in the Turpan-Hami Basin, demonstrate that there are significant changes in source-to-sink system from the Permian to the Triassic, suggesting that the Permian-Triassic unconformity in the Eastern Tianshan and its periphery was generated by Late Permian-Early Triassic tectonic contraction and inversion rather than an increasingly arid climate.