Exclusive:Exploring the deep sea in the South China Sea

South China Seabasin opening: Lithospheric rifting and interactionwith surroundingsubduction zones

  • LIN Jian ,
  • SUN Zhen ,
  • LI Jiabiao ,
  • ZHOU Zhiyuan ,
  • ZHANG Fan ,
  • LUO Yiming
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  • 1. Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China;
    2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA;
    3. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory(Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511458, China;
    4. Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen 518055, China;
    5. Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China;
    6. Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hangzhou 310012, China

Received date: 2020-05-11

  Revised date: 2020-06-19

  Online published: 2020-11-04

Abstract

The South China Sea (SCS) is the largest marginal sea in the western Pacific Ocean. Significant breakthroughs have been made in the SCS researches, especially through the South China Sea Deep Initiative and International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). One of the surprising discoveries is that the expected mantle serpentinites at the IODP drill sites are not found at the northern SCS continental margin; instead, the magma is found to erupt rapidly, indicating the significant magmatism at the SCS soon after the continental rifting and probably due to the strong influence of surrounding subduction zones. Thus, the SCS might be regarded as a new type of rift basin of "plate-edge rifting", different from the classic Atlantic type of "intra-plate rifting". It is also suggested that the subduction-induced mantle upwelling is likely to play an important role in the magmatism of the SCS.

Cite this article

LIN Jian , SUN Zhen , LI Jiabiao , ZHOU Zhiyuan , ZHANG Fan , LUO Yiming . South China Seabasin opening: Lithospheric rifting and interactionwith surroundingsubduction zones[J]. Science & Technology Review, 2020 , 38(18) : 35 -39 . DOI: 10.3981/j.issn.1000-7857.2020.18.005

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