Search

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Wang, P., Huang, C., Lin, J., Jian, Z., Sun, Z., & Zhao, M. The South China Sea is not a mini-Atlantic: plate-edge rifting vs intra-plate rifting. National Science Review, 6(5), (2019): 902-913, doi:10.1093/nsr/nwz135., The South China Sea, as ‘a non-volcanic passive margin basin’ in the Pacific, has often been considered as a small-scale analogue of the Atlantic. The recent ocean drilling in the northern South China Sea margin found, however, that the Iberian model of non-volcanic rifted margin from the Atlantic does not apply to the South China Sea. In this paper, we review a variety of rifted basins and propose to discriminate two types of rifting basins: plate-edge type such as the South China Sea and intra-plate type like the Atlantic. They not only differ from each other in structure, formation process, lifespan and geographic size, but also occur at different stages of the Wilson cycle. The intra-plate rifting occurred in the Mesozoic and gave rise to large oceans, whereas the plate-edge rifting took place mainly in the mid-Cenozoic, with three-quarters of the basins concentrated in the Western Pacific. As a member of the Western Pacific system of marginal seas, the South China Sea should be studied not in isolation on its origin and evolution, but in a systematic context to include also its neighboring counterparts., This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China as a part of the ‘South China Sea Deep’ Project (91128000).

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Sun, Z., Lin, J., Qiu, N., Jian, Z., Wang, P., Pang, X., Zheng, J., & Zhu, B. The role of magmatism in the thinning and breakup of the South China Sea continental margin: Special Topic: the South China Sea Ocean Drilling. National Science Review, 6(5), (2019): 871-876, doi:10.1093/nsr/nwz116., Magmatism plays a key role in the process of continental margin breakup and ocean formation. Even in the extremely magma-poor Iberia and Newfoundland margin, studies of field outcrops have shown that syn-rift magmatism had participated in rifting from a very early stage and contributed directly to the rifting process. The final transition from exhumed continental mantle to the ocean formation is also triggered by the accumulation and eruption of magma [1]. Therefore, Atlantic-type passive continental margins are classified into two end-members: magma-poor (non-volcanic) and magma-rich (volcanic). The differences between them lie in whether a large amount of intrusive and extrusive magmatism from the mantle plume/hotspot is involved in the syn-rift and breakup stages. A magma-rich margin [2] should include the following characteristics: (i) a high-velocity lower crust (HVLC) caused by syn-rift mafic magma underplating; (ii) continental crust intruded by abundant sills and dikes; (iii) a large volume of seaward-dipping reflectors (SDRs) caused by flood basalt eruption or tuffs. All other margins are classified as magma-poor margins., We thank the research team project of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (2017A030312002), IODP-China and South China Sea Deep Project (91628301) and K.C. Wong Education Foundation (GJTD-2018-13) for providing support for the research. This research was also supported by the China National Science and Technology Major Project (2016ZX05026–003), the joint foundation of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Guangdong province (U1301233), as well as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41576070 and 41890813).