CHAPTER 31 THE USE OF HEAVY MINERALS IN DETERMINING THE PROVENANCE AND TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF MESOZOIC AND CAENOZOIC SEDIMENTARY BASINS IN THE CONTINENT-PACIFIC OCEAN TRANSITION ZONE: EXAMPLES FROM SIKHOTE-ALIN AND KORYAK-KAMCHATKA REGIONS (RUSSIAN FAR EAST) AND WESTERN PACIFIC

Abstract

This paper documents the achievements of Russian sedimentologists and mineralogists who have used heavy minerals to reconstruct the provenance and source lithologies of Mesozoic-Caenozoic sedimentary complexes of the Far East and the western Pacific Ocean, and identify their plate tectonic settings. We provide a review of publications, written mostly in Russian, which have not been available or intelligible to non-Russian speakers. Investigations concentrated mainly on the sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary rocks of the Sikhote-Alin fold belt and Koryak-Kamchatka region, but they also included the Pengina Bay and the Vanuatu Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Caenozoic sediment samples were collected during marine geological expeditions and analysed using traditional microscopy of detrital minerals, bulk sediment chemistry, and electron microprobe analysis. Distinctive heavy mineral associations have been recognised that indicated their deposition in particular plate tectonic settings. Geochemical analysis of individual heavy minerals has revealed their source lithologies in a plate tectonic context. The Sikhote-Alin sediments were derived from the continental Siberian and Chinese cratons, complemented-at the beginning and the close of the Phanerozoic-by minor input from contemporary oceanic fragments, including volcanics. In the Koryak-Kamchatka region, forearc basins were fed almost entirely by intermediate and basic rocks amongst which the products of island arc volcanism played a dominant role throughout the Phanerozoic. The principal source of detrital heavy minerals of the Middle Eocene-Pleistocene deep-sea sediments of the Vanuatu Trench was the tholeiitic basalts of the Vanuatu island arc with limited addition from ocean-floor basalts. Only insignificant amounts of terrigenous material reached the depositional area from the Australian continent. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.