Thermal maturity assessment of the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Nampo Group, mid-west Korea: Reconstruction of thermal history

Thermal maturity of the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Nampo Group, a sediment-fill of the Chungnam Basin located in the central western part of South Korea, was assessed by illite crystallinity measurement and sandstone microtexture analysis. The Nampo Group consists of a fluvio-lacustrine deposit bearing meta-anthracitic coals and was over-thrusted by the basement rocks. Sandstones are characterized by down sequence increasing illite crystallinity, from anchizone to epizone, which is strongly suggestive of burial heating. Deep-burial diagenesis and deformation are evidenced by well-developed pressure solution textures, whose intensity tends to increase down sequence, and by ductile deformation in the lowermost strata. On the basis of the result of illite crystallinity measurement, the maximum paleo-temperature and total burial depth of the Nampo Group are estimated to be ca 340 degrees C and 10 km, respectively; these conditions are in good agreement with the observed ductile deformation features. The absence of strata younger than the Nampo Group in and around the Chungnam Basin suggests that deep burial of the Nampo Group was caused by tectonic crustal loading. The tectonic overload was because of basement over-thrusting that occurred during the Jurassic Daebo orogeny, which is closely related to the orthogonal subduction of the Izanagi Plate beneath the East Asian continent. Subsequent hydrothermal alteration disturbed the thermal maturity pattern, resulting in anomalously high illite crystallinity and meta-anthracitization.