Earth Science Frontiers ›› 2016, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (6): 42-60.DOI: 10.13745/j.esf.2016.06.005

• Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Openingclosing tectonics: Exploration of a new idea on global tectonics.

YANG Weiran,JIANG Chunfa,ZHANG Kang,GUO Tieying   

  1. 1.Faculty of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences(Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China 2. Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China 3. Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, SINOPEC, Beijing 100083, China
  • Received:2016-05-12 Revised:2016-06-12 Online:2016-11-15 Published:2016-11-15

Abstract:

The 6070s in the 20th century, was the most active period in academic thinking within Chinese geotectonics circle. In the year 1979 at The 2nd AllChina Conference on Structural Geology a memorable scene appeared that the leading lights of the 8 tectonic schools in China showed up at the same stage to illustrate their own points of view. After that, the leading light of the theory of polycyclic tectonics, academician Huang Jiqing and one of his successors Jiang Chunfa,the leading light of the theory of fault block tectonics, academician Zhang Wenyou and one of his successors Zhang Kang, the leading light of the theory of regional geotectonics, academician Ma Xingyuan, and one of his successors Yang Weiran, proposed respectively at about the same time the polycyclic accordion shaped openingclosing tectonics, the faultblock openingclosing tectonics and the “opening” “closing” tectonics. The 3 tectonic schools reached at the same goal by different routes and made a concerted effort to construct the openingclosing tectonic theory with Chinese characteristics.The openingclosing tectonics deals with the openingclosing movement and the textural structural features and regularities of the geological bodies formed. The present paper is a summary on the fresh round research results of the openingclosing tectonics. (1) The fundamental attribute of the openingclosing tectonics is that openingclosing movement is the major form of the movements of all geological bodies. It reveals the internal relation and intrinsic characteristics of various geological movements. Opening and closing are a pair of elemental contradictions in geodynamics. Both of them are mutual dependent and antagonistic, and are transformable, and the positioning of the time and space of the turning point (zone) of the transformation is both of theoretical and practical significance. (2) The openingclosing rule in geosciences is a summary on the regularities of openingclosing movement including the ranks and layering in various scales of openingclosing tectonics, the temporal cyclicity, the spatial complementation, the orientation in evolution and the summing up of the migration evolution model of the openingclosing movement, i.e., from simple to complex and starting from a point to a line and then spreading over to a plane. (3) Several important concepts in the research of openingclosing tectonics are that the markers of opening and closing are referred to various geological phenomena which can be used in determining the attribute of the opening and closing and are the fundamental information in the study of openingclosing tectonics; the openingclosing formation and formation sequence are the studies on the characteristics of material assemblage during the openingclosing process which reflect the geological setting of the material assemblage and the evolutional stages of the openingclosing tectonics; the classification of types of openingclosing tectonics is based on the comprehension of openingclosing markers in summing up the regularity of association of openingclosing movements in various ranks and layers. It can reflect the various evolution stages of continentocean openingclosing movement. At present, there are 8 types of openingclosing tectonics had been summarized. The unit in openingclosing tectonics is a summary on the comprehensive characteristics and the regularities of spatial distribution of openingclosing tectonics. A new concept of tectonic unit of continental rank—the openingclosing tectonic assemblage has been proposed. It should be strengthened that all the geological bodies in the tectonic assemblage are genetically related each other and are regularly evolved from point to line and then spreading to the plane surrounding a core continental block. The first author of this paper had subdivided the central part of Asia into 4 openingclosing tectonic assemblages. (4)The layered structure of the Earth and various geological structures are formed under the common action between the openingclosing movement and the rotationing movement. Among them the openingclosing movement is the leading one. The rotationing movement regulates the openingclosing movement to reach a relatively stable dynamic equilibrium state. It can be called the openingclosing rotationing tectonic system. The stable dynamic equilibrium can once or locally be destroyed. The process through regulation to reach a new equilibrium is called the tectonic movement, such as, the movements leading to important geological events happened in the geological history, i.e., the Caledonian, the Hercynian, the Yanshanian movements, etc. The regulation of openingclosing movement to reach equilibrium by the rotationing movement is carried out through the tiny variation of the rotation speed of the earth and the subtle difference in rotation speed between various layers of the earth. (5)The tectonic movement is a true record of the reequilibrium process through adjustment of the once or locally destructed openingclosingrotationing dynamic equilibrium system. We consider that the motivation of tectonic movement comes from the thermal energy and gravitational energy of the earth. The core of the earth is a thermal reservoir unceasingly supplying thermal energy upwards. Gravity forms the openingclosing tectonic transformation zone at the coremantle boundary which becomes the base for the thermal energyrich synthetic energy formation and accumulation. Under certain conditions the synthetic energy enriched materials ascend to the mantle and different layers in the crust which mingle or react with the source rocks forming melted thermal fluids with various peculiarities. They are the direct origin causing the production of various geological events and the formation of various geological structure. (6) The mobilism against the fixism has been disputed for a long period of time. The debate is focused at whether the crustal movement is a horizontal or vertical one. By means of temporal and spatial analyses it is likely that the crustal movement is unable to be distinguished whether it is prominent of horizontal or vertical. In fact both vertical movement and horizontal movement are coexisting in the openingclosing tectonic system. There are 2 types of openingclosing movement—the horizontal openingclosing and vertical openingclosing. Therefore, the debate about vertical movement against horizontal movement is of no practical significance and should be stopped.

Key words: global tectonic, geotectonics, openingclosing tectonics, markers of openingclosing tectonics, types of openingclosing tectonics, openingclosing tectonic assemblages, tectonic cycle, openingclosingrotationing tectonic system

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