Northwest trending tectonic belt in the Middle Yanshan orogenic belt of northeast Hebei province, north China: Tectonic evolution and geochronology

The northwest trending tectonic belt in the middle part of the Mesozoic intraplate Yanshan Orogenic Belt, northeast Hebei Province, is composed of thrusts, extensional faults, strike-slip faults and syntectonic sedimentations as well. The northeastward basement-involved major thrusting deformation occurred between 174Ma and 168MaBP and was followed by an intrusion of the granitic plutonic rocks. As a part of the post-thrusting extensional deformations a northwest extending volcano-sedimentation system of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous formed in the southwest side of the belt. These volcano-sedimentary sequences are divided into Tuchengzi Formation, Zhangjiakou Formation, Yixian Formation and Jiufotang Formation respectively. They are characterized by southeastward migration as a result of the increasing down-dip slip displacement along the major extensional fault toward the southeast of the belt. The provenance area of the Jiufotang Formation north to it experienced southwestward thrusting during and after its later sedimentation. The thrusting in this stage resulted in the formation of an asymmetric footwall syncline with vergence to SW in the Jiufotang Formation in the NE side of the basin. Finally a dextral strike-slip deformation occurred along the NW tectonic belt. The striking tectono-geomorphological features and present seismic activities along this belt indicate that it has been being active since Cenozoic era and is still in the active state at present. This northwest extending tectonic belt was following the same direction and location as the existing fault systems within the basement as revealed by former geological and geophysical studies. So it is reasonable to infer the Mesozoic deformation along this belt to be a result of reactivation of the basement structures in a favorable tectonic stress field. The reactivation of basement structures might be taken as one of the mechanisms of intraplate deformation and orogeny.