Preface

Tarim Plate is one of the three major plates in China, surrounded by the Tianshan, Kunlun and Altyn—Tagh orogenic belts. It is also an important connection to the tectonic domains between Central Asia and the Tethys. One notable feature of the Tarim Plate is the wide occurrence of Early Permian intraplate magmatism in which the magmatic rocks were made up mainly of basaltic rocks including basalts, diabase, basaltic andesite, ultramafic rocks, etc. The area of residual distribution of the magmatic rocks can reach about 2.5×105 km2, and the largest residual thickness is more than 700 m. As a new Large Igneous Province (LIP), it has attracted the attention of many scientists.

Based on more than 20 years of study, this book will systematically introduce the tempo-spatial features of the Early Permian Tarim Large Igneous Province (Tarim LIP), the geochemical features and the magma evolution of the rock units, as well as the geodynamics and metallogenesis of the Early Permian Tarim LIP. This book will also provide a new geodynamic model for the LIPs, which is different from the model based on the Deccan LIP and the Parana LIP. This book is the first book to introduce the Early Permian Tarim LIP, and it is an ideal book for researchers and graduate students in tectonics, igneous petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, Earth evolution and planetary geology, as well as for professionals working in the mining industry. This book will also play a very important role in the study of the LIPs and geodynamic research within the tectonic domain of Central Asia. By taking this opportunity, we would like to express our sincere appreciation of the assistance from other teachers and students at the School of Earth Sciences at Zhejiang University. The research work in this book was supported jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41603029 and 40930315), the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (No. 2017ZX005008-001), the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0601004), and the National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2007CB411303 and 2011CB808902).

The Authors

October 2017, Hangzhou