15 March field trip

The first ACTER annual field workshop, with the theme of Tectonic History of the South China Block and Approaches for Tectonic Analysis, was successfully conducted between 2 and 11 March 2015. The event was enthusiastically participated by 30 staff and students from Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Curtin University, and Zhejiang University (ZJU). It was conducted by Professors Zheng-Xiang Li (Curtin) and Hanlin Chen (ZJU), Associate Professor Fengqi Zhang (ZJU), and Dr Kongyang Zhu (ZJU).

A one-day indoor lecture on 2 March provided a brief introduction of the tectonic evolution of the South China Block. The following nine-day field excursion covered a geological traverse from central Zhejiang Province to northeastern Jiangxi Province, examining records of major geotectonic events that shaped the South China Block. These include basement rocks and the assembly of the Yangtze Block with the Cathaysia Block, the Neoproterozoic continental rifting event and possible mantle plume events, the Lower Palaeozoic Wuyi-Yunkai intraplate orogenic event, and the Mesozoic Indosinian and “Yanshanian” events. Participants examined the structural, metamorphic, magmatic and basin record of these events and continental cover sequences formed in-between events. Students worked in groups to develop a time-space diagram covering the different field regions, and presented their own tectonic interpretations at the end of the workshop.

Materials used for this workshop were published in a 2014 book (Li, Z.X., Chen, H.L., Li, X.H., Zhang, F.Q.: Tectonics of the South China Block — Interpreting the Rock Record. Science Press, Beijing, June 2014, 144 pp.).