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Abstract

The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), situated between the East European Platform, the Siberian Craton, and the combined Tarim and North China Cratons (Fig. 1.1), is one of the largest Phanerozoic orogenic systems on Earth [4, 8, 21, 42]. Despite numerous investigations (e.g. [1, 24, 37, 41, 42], and references therein), however, it perhaps still remains the least understood tectonic belt on the Eurasian continent. It formed as a result of accretionary events induced by the Palaeozoic subduction of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean, which separated the Tarim and North China Cratons from the growing accretionary front encircling the Siberian Craton and East European Platform until the Late Permian to Early Triassic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Eizenhöfer, P.R., Zhao, G., Sun, M., Zhang, J., Han, Y. & Hou, W. (in press). Geochronological and Hf isotopic variability of detrital zircons across the North China Craton and the Mongolian Arcs, and its implications. Geological Society of America Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1130/B31175.1.

  2. 2.

    Eizenhöfer et al. (in prep.). Geochronological entropy and its relevance to age provenance studies.

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Eizenhöfer, P.R. (2020). Introduction. In: Subduction and Closure of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean along the Solonker Suture Zone: Constraints from an Integrated Sedimentary Provenance Analysis. Springer Theses. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9200-0_1

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