Zhenyu He

Mesoproterozoic juvenile crust in microcontinents of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt: evidence from oxygen and hafnium isotopes in zircon

We report in situ O and Hf isotope data of zircon grains from coeval Mesoproterozoic (ca. 1.4 Ga) igneous metamafic (amphibolite) and granitic rocks of the Chinese Central Tianshan microcontinent (CTM) in the southern Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB). Zircon grains from amphibolite have mantle-like δ18OVSMOW values of 4.7–5.6‰ and juvenile Hf isotopic compositions (εHf(t) = 8.4–15.3; TDMC = 1.57–1.22 Ga), whereas those from granitic rocks have δ18OVSMOW values of 5.6–7.0‰ and evolved Hf isotopic compositions (εHf(t) = −1.0–8.2; TDMC = 2.09–1.62 Ga). Zircon O–Hf isotopic compositions of the metamafic and granitic rocks provide evidence for Mesoproterozoic (ca. 1.4 Ga) crustal growth and a substantial Palaeoproterozoic supracrustal component in the CTM. These findings and previous studies, reporting ca. 1.4 Ga magmatic rocks from other microcontinents of the CAOB, suggest that a large belt of Mesoproterozoic (ca. 1.4 Ga) juvenile continental crust formed in a continental terrane, fragments of which now occur over a distance of more than a thousand kilometres in the southern CAOB.