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It is generally accepted that oceanic plate subduction has occurred along the eastern margin of Asia since about 500 Ma ago. Therefore, the Japanese Islands have a >500 Ma history of oceanic plate subduction in their geological records. In this paper, the accretionary history of the Japanese Islands is divided into six main stages based on the mode and nature of tectonic events and the temporal gaps in the development of accretionary processes. In the first stage, oceanic plate subduction and accretion started along the margin of Gondwana. After detachment of the North and South China blocks in Devonian time, accretionary complexes developed along island arcs offshore of the South and North China blocks. After the formation of back arc basins such as the Japan Sea, accretionary processes occurred only along the limited convergent margin, e.g. Nankai Trough. Detrital zircons of sandstones revealed the accretionary history of Japan. An evaluation of a comprehensive dataset on detrital zircon populations shows that the observed temporal gaps in the development of the Japanese accretionary complexes were closely related to the intensity of igneous activity in their provenance regions. Age distributions of detrital zircons in the accretionary complexes of Japan change before and after the Middle Triassic period, when the collision of the South and North China blocks occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subduction accretionary complexes are composed of major and minor structural, stratigraphic, and tectonostratigraphic units. The major architectural units, Accretionary Units (AUs), are bounded by major faults, but differ from terranes in that they may contain units stratigraphically correlative with units in other AUs and they are smaller than the largest terranes. AUs occur in three basic formats – (1) singular sheets or blocks of stratigraphic layers, dismembered formation, or mélange, (2) folded units composed of one or more stratigraphic or block-in-matrix units, and (3) faulted stratigraphic masses (i.e., broken formations). Composite AUs with multiple units and multiple attributes are common. Multiple suites of structures may arise in AUs from progressive early deformation or later superimposed deformational events. AUs may be subdivided through detailed mapping into sub-units such as fault blocks, mélanges, dismembered formations, broken formations, intact formations, and members. Each AU should be defined on the basis of unique characters that derive from a thorough description of the AU, including its distinct rock types and character; and where possible, lithofacies, metamorphic facies, structures, and unit history. Descriptions of partially described AUs from the Franciscan Complex of California and the Miura-Boso area of Japan provide examples of the character of AUs. Ideally, the architecture and history of a subduction complex can be reconstructed by assembling detailed map and text descriptions of the constituent AUs, their 3D-positions, their relationships, and their histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the metamorphic ages of the accretionary complexes in the Northern Chichibu Belt in SW Japan, K–Ar dating was conducted using weakly metamorphosed sedimentary rocks collected from the Kanto Mountains, Central Japan. Whole-rock ages were obtained for chert and red shale samples, and the mineral ages of fine-grained illite with a grain size of less than 4 μ m were obtained for chert, red shale, mudstone, acidic tuff, and basic tuff. The K–Ar ages of chert and red shale presented large variations, with systematically older ages compared to those of mudstone and tuff in the same strata. The influence of submarine hydrothermal activities on chert and red shale before subduction is a possible cause of this deviation. The illite samples, which were fractionated into four grain-size classes using a suspension method, yielded older ages and higher illite crystallinity (i.e., smaller values of Kübler's crystallinity index) for larger grain-size classes. The peak metamorphic ages were determined from the K–Ar ages of the 3–4 μ m class illite in mudstone and tuff. The Late Jurassic to the Earliest Cretaceous accretionary complex of the lowest structural unit (Kashiwagi Unit) was dated within a small range between 117–110 Ma, which is distinctly older than the K–Ar ages of white mica reported from the Sanbagawa Belt. The peak metamorphic age of acidic tuff (113 Ma) at the type locality of the Mikabu Greenstones indicates that the subducted Mikabu seamount is a constituent of the Kashiwagi Unit. The peak metamorphic ages of the Manba and Kamiyoshida Units were obtained as 132–107 Ma and 163–144 Ma, respectively. Major structural discontinuity is suggested within the Middle Jurassic accretionary complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding sedimentary routing systems at continental margins can be challenging in tectonically active regions such as forearc basins. Here, we combine sand modal composition and detrital zircon U‐Pb data from the Kumano Basin and surrounding Nankai Trough region of Japan to explore sedimentation in an active forearc and its linkages to the regional tectonic history. Our analyses are on Miocene‐to‐Pleistocene samples collected by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) at inner and outer forearc basin sites C0009 and C0002, river samples from onshore Honshu, and published results from other Nankai IODP sites. Results show the sediments of many IODP samples are similar to that of the modern rivers. Data from C0009 demonstrate that the early accretionary prism already contained slope basins fed by sediments similar to those in the modern Kumano River by 7.1 Ma. The more distal C0002 section was predominantly fed by a system similar to the modern Yodo River, located to the west‐southwest. We conclude that the section was therefore tectonically transported, in agreement with the 'mobile model' of oblique tectonic convergence across SW Japan during late Miocene time. Deposition resumed after a ca. 5.6–3.8 Ma hiatus, with sediments primarily fed from the paleo‐Kumano River, with some input from the paleo‐Tenryu and Kiso/Nagara rivers located to the northeast. Input from the paleo‐Tenryu and Kiso/Nagara rivers was likely re‐routed towards the trench by ca. 1.3 Ma. Sediments similar to those of the distal Yodo River also make up part of the Kumano basin fill and are best explained by erosion of uplifted older accretionary prism sediments along the Megasplay Fault that bounds the forearc basin. Despite the temporal variability in sedimentation routed to the basin, basin‐fill dynamics appear to have been governed primarily by the critical‐wedge style dynamics driven by variations in frontal accretion and in‐ or out‐of‐sequence thrusting response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the lithostratigraphy and deformation structures of the accreted pelagic rocks in Lake Hamana area, Central Japan, based on a detailed field mapping and the radiolarian ages. The constructed lithostratigraphy is composed of Lopingian (Upper Permian) grey chert, black chert, black claystone with a high carbon content of 4.85–6.78 wt%, siliceous claystone, black chert, and Anisian (Middle Triassic) grey chert, in the ascending order. The symmetry in the lithostratigraphy and the change in the radiolarian ages with respect to black carbonaceous claystone are presumed to represent a deep‐sea anoxic event that occurred across the Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) boundary. The P–Tr boundary black carbonaceous claystone suffered from an intense shear, resulting in blocks of siliceous claystone in the scaly black claystone matrix. In places, the sheared terrigenous rocks composed of sandstone blocks in the mudstone matrix are intercalated into the pelagic rocks, possibly representing complex mélange forming processes during the development of the Jurassic accretionary complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Three-dimensional (3D) seismic data from the southern Kumano Basin of southwest Japan image a nested series of moderately sized mass transport deposits (MTDs) that slid from a slope along the seaward side of the forearc basin. The deposits are dated to be approximately 0.3 to 0.9 Ma. These MTDs are likely linked to the movement along a prominent out-of-sequence thrust (OOST) fault, regionally steeper slopes that would have existed during deposition, and shifts in sedimentation over the past 0.9 Ma. The spatial resolution provided by the 3D seismic data permits the identification of kinematic characteristics and the internal geometries of the MTDs which total over 2.8 km3 in volume and cover more than 59 km2 of the seafloor at various stratigraphic levels. Each MTD is well imaged and exhibits various kinematic indicators while most of the basal glide planes and original headwall scarps above the deposits have been partially or fully eroded by subsequent MTDs. There are at least seven individual deposits that range in volume from 0.005 to 1.16 km3, in area from 0.2 to 21.8 km2; have runouts between 0.55 and 7.9 km, and generally translate downslope from the SE to NW. Basal, internal, and top surface kinematic indicators, such as grooves, thrust and fold systems, and pressure ridges, show that these MTDs originate from a prominent slide scar recognized in the high-resolution regional bathymetry. This, combined with a regionally shifting depocenter and faulting related to the earthquake cycle, points to regional tectonic activity as being the most likely failure trigger for these nested landslides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]