Permian Triassic geologic evolution in the southern Kitakami Belt, Japan

Abstract

Before opening of the Japan Sea, the Japanese islands were attached to the eastern margin of the Asian continent. The Southern Kitakami Belt is regarded as a micro-continent in an accretional complex of the islands, that accreted before the Early Cretaceous. But its tectonic setting and location between the belt and the Asian continent is still an unresolved argument.

Permo-Triassic sequences in the Southern Kitakami Belt are composed of shallow to off-shore deposits. These deposits are composed of clastics, carbonates with volcaniclastics. But there was no volcanic activity in the belt in the Middle to Late Permian. From the viewpoint of the sedimentary character and history, the Middle Permian to Middle Triassic sequences differ from their previous and their following successions in the belt. And the sedimentary basin of Middle Permian to Middle Triassic was bounded by transform faults. Magmatic arc was replaced by passive margin as hinterland of the Southern Kitakami Belt during the Middle Permian to Middle Triassic. It means that the sedimentary basin moved from the margin of Yangtze Platform to Sino-Korean Platform at that time.