Permian palaeogeographic evolution of the Jiangnan Basin, South China

The most striking geographic feature of the Permian of South China is the Jiangnan Basin, which intimately reflects the interplay between the Yangtze and Cathaysia blocks. Geographic and sedimentological evolution suggests that the Jiangnan Basin, superposed on a Precambrian collisonial megasuture and a folded early Paleozoic deep basin, was an extensional intracratonic basin. It opened in the Longlinian and became more passive and restricted in the latest Maokouan. The remarkably similar geographic patterns of the Jiangnan Basin in the early and late Palaeozoic suggest that the Yangtze and Cathaysia blocks were coherent during the Paleozoic. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.