THE BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE CONTINENTAL LITHOSPHERE IN CHINA

Microcontinental blocks of varying sizes and the linear tectonic belts between them constitute a rather complicated pattern of mosaic structure, and in this way the continental lithosphere of China and its adjacent regions as a whole shows an extremely complicated, mosaic-imbrication structure in three dimensions. The intersection and superposition of the paleo-Asian, Tethyan and circum-Pacifie geodynamic systems created a polyeyclie, Periodical evolution in the history of the area, which is, though complex, recognizable. Subduction and collisional orogeny in China during the paleozoic and Early Mesozoic were represented by closing of small oceanic basins and the soft collision between microcontinsntal blocks, rather than by closing of large oceanicbasins and the hard collision between huge continents. Thus, long after the collision in the paleozoic, the Yangtze, Sino-Korean and other blocks did not unite as one though they stood side by side. And hence, polycyclic subduction and orogeny of the continental crust is considered be a Prominent feature of the continental tectonics of China as well as Asia.