A multidisciplinary study on the emplacement mechanism of the Qingyang-Jiuhua Massif in Southeast China and its tectonic bearings. Part I: structural geology, AMS and paleomagnetism

During the Cretaceous, the South China Block (SCB) experienced a widely distributed extensional event including numerous plutons emplacement and basin opening. Investigations on the tectonic regime coeval with pluton emplacement, and emplacement mechanism of the pluton remain relatively rare in the SCB. In order to address these questions, a multidisciplinary approach, including field structural and petrographic observations, anisotropy magnetic susceptibility (AMS) and paleomagnetic analyses, was carried out on the Qingyang-Jiuhua granitic massif which intrudes into the Lower Yangtze fold belt in the northeastern part of SCB. The Qingyang-Jiuhua massif is composed of the granodioritic Qingyang and monzogranitic Jiuhua plutons dated by zircon U-Pb method at ca. 142 Ma, and ca. 131 Ma, respectively. Our structural observations show that the intrusion of the Qingyang-Jiuhua massif does not modify the fold strike. A weak ductile deformationof the country rocks and granitoid can be only observed in the boundary zone with limited contact metamorphism. In the contact aureole of the massif, the foliation follows the pluton contour, and the mineral lineation is rare. When present, it exhibits