Extremely rapid up-and-down motions of island arc crust during arc-continent collision
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Date
2022-03
Authors
Lai, Larry Syu-Heng
Yen, Jiun-Yee
Dorsey, Rebecca J.
Horng, Chorng-Shern
Chi, Wen-Rong
Shea, Kai-Shuan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Abstract
Mountain building and the rock cycle often involve large vertical crustal motions, but their rates and timescales in unmetamorphosed rocks remain poorly understood. We utilize high-resolution magneto-biostratigraphy and backstripping analysis of marine deposits in an active arc-continent suture zone of eastern Taiwan to document short cycles of vertical crustal oscillations. A basal unconformity formed on Miocene volcanic arc crust in an uplifting forebulge starting ~6 Ma, followed by rapid foredeep subsidence at 2.3–3.2 mm yr−1 (~3.4–0.5 Ma) in response to oceanward-migrating flexural wave. Since ~0.8–0.5 Ma, arc crust has undergone extremely rapid (~9.0–14.4 mm yr−1) uplift to form the modern Coastal Range during transpressional strain. The northern sector may have recently entered another phase of subsidence related to a subduction polarity reversal. These transient vertical crustal motions are under-detected by thermochronologic methods, but are likely characteristic of continental growth by arc accretion over geologic timescales.
Description
10 pages
Keywords
Palaeomagnetism, Sedimentology, Tectonics, Stratigraphy
Citation
Lai, L.SH., Dorsey, R.J., Horng, CS. et al. Extremely rapid up-and-down motions of island arc crust during arc-continent collision. Commun Earth Environ 3, 100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00429-2