Tectonic Evolution and Structural Geology of East Asian Basins

East Asian basins record a long and complex history of continental assembly, breakup and reorganisation under the influence of adjacent oceanic plates and far-field stresses. Rift basins emerged in the Mesozoic during rollback of the paleo-Pacific plate, producing a spectrum of extensional settings from narrow half-grabens to broad wide rift systems. These basins were punctuated by episodes of magmatism, graben inversion and strike-slip faulting as subduction geometry evolved. In the Cenozoic, renewed plate interactions and mantle upwelling gave rise to strike-slip-dominated sag basins along the eastern margin, while hinterland domains experienced post-collisional collapse and core complex exhumation. Key sedimentary provinces such as the Bohai Bay, Songliao and Ordos basins preserve syn-rift lacustrine and fluvial systems that later subsided under regional shortening, generating inversion structures and fluid migration pathways. In the hinterland, metamorphic core complexes and supradetachment basins document extensional unroofing and crustal thinning. Continental-scale transfer zones and major faults, including the Tanlu and North China fold and thrust belts, record the transformation from compressional orogeny to large-scale strike-slip motion. This tectonic evolution underpins the distribution of natural resources, the architecture of groundwater systems and seismic hazard patterns throughout eastern Asia.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work on the Cangdong Sag within the Bohai Bay Basin has refined our understanding of how plate-driven forces shape sag basin architecture. Detailed stratigraphic and structural analysis identifies four distinct phases of Cenozoic evolution: an initial Paleocene rift, an intensive early Eocene extension, a late Eocene–Oligocene strike-slip superimposed rift and a Neogene post-rift depression. Variations in fault geometry along bounding half-grabens reveal that changes in subduction direction of the western Pacific plate triggered shifts from pure extension to strike-slip regimes. This study provides a coherent model linking subsidence history, fault reactivation and far-field plate reorganisation to the present-day basin framework.

Tectonic Evolution and Structural Geology of East Asian Basins publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in tectonic evolution and structural geology of east asian basins across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Rift basin: A depositional basin formed by crustal extension that creates faults and subsidence, often infilled by fluvial and lacustrine sediments.

Half-graben: A rift structure bounded by a single major normal fault, causing asymmetric subsidence of one block relative to the other.

Metamorphic core complex: An uplifted dome of deep crustal rocks exhumed along a low-angle detachment fault during continental extension.

Slab rollback: Retrograde motion of a subducting oceanic plate that induces mantle flow and extension in the overlying plate margin.

Strike-slip fault: A fault on which the dominant displacement is horizontal, parallel to the fault trace, accommodating lateral plate motions.

References

1. Geometry and Evolution of the Cangdong Sag in the Bohai Bay Basin, China: Implications for Subduction of the Pacific Plate. Scientific Reports (2017).
2. Formation and Evolution of Supradetachment Basins During Continental Extension: Insights From the Fuxin Basin in NE China. Frontiers in Earth Science (2022).
3. Geochronological and Paleomagnetic Constraints on the Lower Cretaceous Dalazi Formation from the Yanji Basin, NE China, and its Tectonic Implication. Minerals (2021).