Potential role of strike-slip faults in opening up the South China Sea

Non-mantle-plume process caused the initial spreading of the South China Sea

The mantle plume process is thought to be the prevailing dynamic mechanism for the South China Sea opening, but controversy persists due to the lack of critical evidence of magma in the initial seafloor spreading. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 367 successfully recovered at Site U1500 the mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) representing the magma activity of the initial spreading of the South China Sea during the earliest Oligocene. Here we present the whole-rock and olivine phenocryst geochemistry of the basalts to constrain the potential influence of the Hainan mantle plume on the evolution of the South China Sea. Major and trace elemental compositions indicate that the basalts were mainly influenced by fractional crystallization of olivine and formed by melting of a spinel peridotite source without any pyroxenite in mantle source. The calculated mantle potential temperature of those most primitive basalts is much lower than plume-related MORB of Iceland, but similar to normal MORB elsewhere. Both lithological composition and mantle potential temperature clearly contradict with the mantle plume model, signifying that the mantle plume didn't exist at the earliest Oligocene. Therefore, the initial spreading of the South China Sea should be caused by non-plume processes, most likely by the westward subduction of the Pacific Plate.

The South China Sea is not a mini-Atlantic: plate-edge rifting vs intra-plate rifting

The South China Sea, as 'a non-volcanic passive margin basin' in the Pacific, has often been considered as a small-scale analogue of the Atlantic. The recent ocean drilling in the northern South China Sea margin found, however, that the Iberian model of non-volcanic rifted margin from the Atlantic does not apply to the South China Sea. In this paper, we review a variety of rifted basins and propose to discriminate two types of rifting basins: plate-edge type such as the South China Sea and intra-plate type like the Atlantic. They not only differ from each other in structure, formation process, lifespan and geographic size, but also occur at different stages of the Wilson cycle. The intra-plate rifting occurred in the Mesozoic and gave rise to large oceans, whereas the plate-edge rifting took place mainly in the mid-Cenozoic, with three-quarters of the basins concentrated in the Western Pacific. As a member of the Western Pacific system of marginal seas, the South China Sea should be studied not in isolation on its origin and evolution, but in a systematic context to include also its neighboring counterparts.