Plume-related sedimentary basins in East Asia during the Cretaceous

Many Cretaceous sedimentary basins of various sizes occur in East Asia, which are classified into four geotectonic settings: forearc, intra-arc, back-arc, and intra-continental basins. Among these, intra-arc and back-arc basins are characterized by rifting and pull-apart origins, and intra-continental basins by rifting related to large-scale magmatism or plume. The pull-apart basins in Southwest Japan are closely related to plate-subduction magmatism. The continental region rift basins in the Early Cretaceous, however, seem to have no direct relation to subduction-controlled magmatisms, because almost no accretionary prism was developed along the continental margin at that time. This means that plume-related magmatism played an important role in the eastern part of the Asian continent due to return flow effects from the 670 km thermal boundary layer. Such a plume magmatism explains systematically the origin and development of varieties of rift basins in East Asia in Cretaceous time.