Paleozoic tectonic evolution of the proto-Korean Peninsula along the East Asian continental margin from detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology and Hf isotope geochemistry

Detrital zircon geochronology and Hf isotope analysis can be used for inferring provenance characteris-tics, and to evaluate the tectonic evolution of sedimentary basins and their link with regional orogenesis. The Paleozoic sequences of the Okcheon Belt consist of the Lower Paleozoic Joseon and the Upper Paleozoic Pyeongan supergroups with Middle Paleozoic hiatus locally on top of the Neoproterozoic bimo-dal volcanic rocks, reflecting an intracontinental rift setting between the two basements (viz. Gyeonggi and Yeongnam massifs) at southern part of the Korean Peninsula. Our detrital zircon U-Pb ages and Lu-Hf isotope results show that all these Paleozoic strata commonly have Paleoproterozoic and Paleozoic zircon ages with rare Meso-to Neoproterozoic ages. The individual zircon populations display following features, allowing estimation of their sedimentary provenances: (i) The Paleoproterozoic zircons (ca. 1.85 Ga and 2.50 Ga) with similar ranges of eHf(t) values are most common in the basement rocks of the Korean Peninsula, and were sourced from both the Gyeonggi and Yeongnam massifs. (ii) The Meso-to Neoproterozoic zircons, preserved only in the Middle to Late Cambrian clastic sedimen-tary rocks within the carbonate sequences probably reflect proximal provenance. (iii) The youngest Paleozoic zircons of each formation, almost coincident with their deposition ages, suggest presence of syndepositional magmatism, indicating proximal magmatic sources during their deposition. (iv) The Cambrian-Ordovician zircons, from the Lower Paleozoic sequences, but rare in the successive Upper Paleozoic sequences, suggest a provenance change after the hiatus between the two sedimentary successions. (v) The Permian zircons showing different eHf(t) values indicate that detrital sources were varied at that time. The integrated results in our study suggest provenance variability linked to diverse tectonic environments, reflecting prolonged subduction-related crustal evolution of the proto-Korean Peninsula during the Paleozoic.(c) 2023 China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Geosciences (Beijing). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Detrital zircon geochronology and Hf isotope analysis are used to infer provenance characteristics and evaluate the tectonic evolution of sedimentary basins. The results of this study show that the Paleozoic sequences of the Okcheon Belt have a diverse provenance linked to different tectonic environments.