New early oligocene zircon U-Pb dates for the ‘Miocene’ Wenshan Basin, Yunnan, China: Biodiversity and paleoenvironment

Tian, Yimin; Spicer, Robert A.; Huang, Jian; Zhou, Zhekun; Su, Tao; Widdowson, Mike; Jia, Linbo; Li, Shihu; Wu, Wenjian; Xue, Li; Luo, Penghui and Zhang, Shitao (2021). New early oligocene zircon U-Pb dates for the ‘Miocene’ Wenshan Basin, Yunnan, China: Biodiversity and paleoenvironment. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 565, article no. 116929.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116929

Abstract

The sedimentary basins of Yunnan, Southwest China, record detailed histories of Cenozoic paleoenvironmental change. They track regional tectonic and palaeobiological evolution, both of which are critically important for the development of modern floral diversity in southwestern China and throughout Asia more generally. However, to be useful, the sedimentary archives within the basins have to be placed within a well-constrained timeframe independent of biostratigraphy. Using high resolution U-Pb dating, we redefine the age of fossil-bearing strata in the Wenshan Basin. Regarded as Miocene for the last half century, these basin sediments encompass 30± 2 and 32 ± 1 Ma early Oligocene tuffaceous horizons, thus indicating a significantly greater antiquity than previously recognized. Together with other regional age revisions our result points to widespread Yunnan basin and orographic development as largely having taken place by the end Paleogene. This age revision provides an important new perspective on the preserved biotas and their evolution in Yunnan, and especially our understanding of the origin of Asian biodiversity which, regionally, had a near-modern composition by the early Oligocene. Crucially, this revised age evidences late Eocene-early Oligocene regional tectonism, pointing to the rise of eastern Tibet and the Hengduan Mountains before the growth of the Himalaya, and that Asia's high plant diversity has a Paleogene origin.

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• Item ORO ID
• 76112
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 0012-821X
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  Not Set	41661134049	National Natural Science Foundation of China
  Not Set	NE/P013805/1	Natural Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom
  Not Set	2019QZKK0705	Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research
  Joint research program of Yunnan	U1502231	National Natural Science Foundation of China
  International Fellowship for Visiting Scientists	Not Set	XTBG
  Not Set	31800183	National Natural Science Foundation of China
  135 Program	2017XTBG-T03	Chinese Academy of Sciences
  ‘Light of West China’ Program	Not Set	Chinese Academy of Sciences

• Keywords
• biodiversity hot spot; paleoenvironment; sedimentary basin; SW China; U-Pb dating
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences
  Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
• Copyright Holders
• © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
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• ORO Import