• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 2016

Geochemical characteristics of the Early Cretaceous igneous rocks from eastern China and the Gyeongsang Basin, Korean Peninsula has been summarized. They have wide range of lithological variation with extrusive picrite-basalt-andesite-trachyte-rhyolite and lamprophyre, and intrusive gabbro-diorite-monzonite-syenite-granite and diabase in eastern China, mostly belonging to the high-K calc-alkaline or shoshonitic series. The volcanic rocks intercalated with the Hayang Group sedimentary assemblages in the Gyeongsang basin are high-K to shoshonitic basaltic trachyandesites. The Early Cretaceous basaltic rocks studied mostly fall within the field of within-plate basalts on the Zr/Y-Zr and Nb-Zr-Y tectonic discrimination diagrams. On a Sr-Nd isotope correlation diagram, basaltic rocks from the North China block (NCB) and the continent-continent collision zone (CZ) between the North and South China blocks plot into the enriched lower right quadrant along the extension of the mantle array. The initial $^{87}Sr/^{86}Sr$ ratios of basaltic rocks from the South China block (SCB) are indistinguishable from those of the NCB and CZ basaltic rocks, but their ${\varepsilon}_{Nd}$ (t) values are relatively more elevated, plotting in right side of the mantle array. Basaltic rocks from the NCB and CZ are characterized by low $^{206}Pb/^{204}Pb(t)$ ratios, lying to the left of the Geochron on the $^{207}Pb/^{204}Pb(t)$ vs. $^{206}Pb/^{204}Pb(t)$ correlation. Meanwhile, the SCB basaltic rocks have relatively radiogenic Pb isotopic compositions compared with those of the NCB and CZ basaltic rocks. Basaltic rocks from the Hayang Group plot within the field of the NCB basaltic rocks in Sr-Nd and Pb-Pb isotope spaces. Metasomatically enriched subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) is likely to have been the dominant source for the early Cretaceous magmatism. Asthenospheric upwelling under an early Cretaceous extensional tectonic setting in eastern China and the Korean Peninsula might be a heat source for melting of the enriched SCLM. Metasomatic agents proposed include partial melts of lower continental crust delaminated and foundered into the mantle or subducted Yangtze continental crust, or fluid/melt derived from the subducted paleo-Pacific plate.