Provenance of Jurassic sediments in the Hefei Basin, east-central China and the contribution of high-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks from the Dabie Shan

The provenance of the Jurassic sediments in the Hefei Basin is constrained by compositions of the detrital K-white micas and garnets, and SHRIMP dating of the detrital zircons, which can help to understand the evolution and to reconstruct the paleogeographic distribution of HP–UHP rocks in the Jurassic Dabie Shan. (1) For the oldest Mesozoic sediments at the bottom of the Fanghushan Formation (J1), the predominance of the early Paleozoic and Luliang (1700–1900 Ma) zircons indicates a major source from the North China Block. However, Neoproterozoic zircons as the major component in other Jurassic sediments indicate that the source rocks were mainly derived from the exhumed Yangtze Block in the Dabie Shan. (2) The co-occurrence of high-Si phengites and Triassic zircons provides stratigraphic evidence that the first exposure of the UHP rocks at the Earthʹs surface in the Dabie Shan occurred in the Early Jurassic during deposition of the Fanghushan Formation. (3) From the east to the west of the Hefei Basin, there is a spatial variation in the compositions for detrital micas and garnets, and in the U–Pb ages of detrital zircons. Evidently, HP–UHP rocks were widely distributed at outcrop in the eastern Dabie Shan. In contrast, they were less important in the western Dabie Shan during the Jurassic.