Magnetostratigraphy and 230Th dating of Pleistocene biogenic reefs in XK-1 borehole from Xisha Islands, South China Sea

Zhen Feng Wang, Dao Jun Zhang, Xin Yu Liu, Li You, Wei Luo, Liang Yi, Liang Cheng Tan, You Hua Zhu, Hua Feng Qin, Hai Cheng, Zhong Quan Li, Qiang Xie, Zhi Wei Che, Cheng Long Deng, Ri Xiang Zhu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Biogenic reefs and carbonate platforms are valuable natural resources, which play a role in modulating global climate and carbon cycle through biological processes. In this study, by combining paleomagnetic data and 230Th dating with lithostratigraphic characters for the XK-1 biogenic reef sequence from the Xisha Islands, northern South China Sea, new insights into the regional geochronology since the early Pleistocene are obtained. The main results are as follows: (1) Paleomagnetic findings suggest that the sequence records the Brunhes normal chron and the Matuyama reverse chron, including the Jaramillo and Olduvai normal subchrons. (2) The studied biogenic reef sequence named as the Ledong Formation has two subunits, i. e., upper and lower sections, which can be correlated to the middle and late Pleistocene, and the early Pleistocene, respectively. By comparing our results with those for previous long cores from the Xisha area, we conclude that the previous debate on the position and age of the Ledong Formation around the Xisha area mainly arose from inadequate absolute dating and use of different criteria for lithostratigraphic boundary determination. After determining the lower lithological boundary of the Ledong Formation, we set the age of the boundary as ~2.0 Ma.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1027-1038
Number of pages12
JournalActa Geophysica Sinica
Volume60
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2017

Keywords

  • Biogenic reefs
  • Magnetostratigraphy
  • Pleistocene
  • South China Sea
  • Th dating

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