Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:32:53.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Petrography of trench sands from the Nankai Trough, southwest Japan: implications for long-distance turbidite transportation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

R. De Rosa
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universitá della Calabria, Italy
G. G. Zuffa
Affiliation:
Istituto di Geologia e Paleontologia, Universitá di Bologna, Italy
A. Taira
Affiliation:
Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan
J. K. Leggett
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London SW7 2BP, U.K.

Abstract

Twenty-three samples of Quaternary sands from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Leg 87 Sites 582 (trench axis) and 583 (lowermost terrace of uplifted trench sediments in the accretionary prism) off Shikoku show a 70–80% volcanic component in the terrigenous grain population. This component comprises 30–40% neovolcanic grains, among which basic and intermediate types are present in roughly equal proportions, and 60–70% palaeovolcanic grains, which are predominantly of acidic composition. No volcanic terrane occurs, in the hinterland of the Shikoku portion of the Nankai Trough, and the first such rocks to the east (up the very slight depositional slope of the Nankai Trough axis) are not encountered for more than 500 km. These, occupying the Izu Peninsula and the majority of the Tokai drainage basin to the north, are Neogene and Recent volcanics which are of comparable variability to the volcanic grains in the sands off Shikoku.

The minor component of sedimentary, metamorphic and plutonic grains in the Leg 87 sand samples can be matched with the basinal clastic ophiolitic Shimanto and Chichibu terranes and the high-pressure metamorphic Sambagawa terrane which border the Nankai Trough fore-arc along southwest Japan. This detritus also most likely derives from the Tokai drainage basin, where the easternmost outcrops of the above-mentioned terranes occur, because most sediments deriving from Shikoku and the Kii regions are ponded in terraced fore-arc basins or in basins on the lower slope. Only three major submarine canyons debouch into the floor of the Nankai Trough. The easternmost of these, the Suruga Trough, taps the volcanic Izu/Tokai hinterland, and is therefore the conduit for most sand fed to the trench off Shikoku.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aoki, Y., Tamano, T. & Kato, S. 1982. Detailed structure of the Nankai Trough from migrated seismic sections. In Studies in Continental Margin Geology (ed. Watkins, J. S Drake, C. L.), pp. 309–22. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir No. 34.Google Scholar
Bachman, S. B. & Leggett, J. K. 1982. Petrology of Middle America trench and trench slope sands, Guerrero margin, Mexico. In Initial Reports of DSDP Leg 66 (ed. Moore, J. C. Watkins, J. S.), pp. 429–36. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Crook, K. A. W. 1974. Lithogenesis and geotectonics: the significance of compositional variation in flysch arenites (Graywackes). In Modern and Ancient Geosynclinal Sedimentaton pp. 304–10. SEPM Special Publication no. 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, W. R., Beard, L. S., Brakenridge, G. R., Erjavec, J. L., Ferguson, R. C., Inman, K. F., Knepp, R. A., Lindberg, F. A. & Rybert, P. T. 1983. Provenance of North American Phanerozoic sandstones in relation to tectonic setting. Geological Society of America Bulletin 94, 222–35.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, W. R. & Suczek, C. A. 1979. Plate tectonics and sandstone compositions. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 63, 2164–82.Google Scholar
Gazzi, P. 1966. Le arenarie del flysch sopracretaceo dell'appennino modenese: correlazioni con il flysch di Monghidoro. Mineralogical et Petrographica Acta 12, 6997.Google Scholar
Karig, D. E., Kagami, H. and Dsdp, Leg 87 Scientific Party. 1983. Varied responses to subduction in Nankai Trough and Japan Trench forearcs. Nature 304, 148–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kobayashi, K. & Nakada, M. 1978. Magnetic anomalies and tectonic evolution of the Shikoku interarc basin. Journal of the Physics of the Earth 26, 53905402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leggett, J. K., Aoki, Y. & Toba, T. 1985. Transition from frontal accretion to underplating in a part of the Nankai Trough accretionary complex off Shikoku (SW Japan) and extensional features on the lower trench slope. Marine and Petroleum Geology (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcbride, E. F. 1963. A classification of common sandstone. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 33, 664–9.Google Scholar
Matsuda, T. 1978. Collision of the Izu–Bonin arc with central Honshu: Cenozoic tectonics of the Fossa Magna, Japan. Journal of the Physics of the Earth 26, Supplement 5409–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nasu, N. et al. (eds.) 1982. Multichannel Seismic Reflection Data across the Nankai Trough. IPOD Japan Basic Data Series No. 4, Ocean Reserch Institute, University of Tokyo.Google Scholar
Okuda, Y. (ed.) 1977. Geological Map of Outer Zone of SW Japan. Marine Geology Map Series no. 8, Geological Survey of Japan.Google Scholar
Prasad, S. & Hesse, R. 1982. Provenance of detrital sediments from the Middle America Trench (Guatemala Transect). In Initial Reports of DSDP Leg 67 pp. 507–14. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Seno, T. 1977. The instantaneous rotation vector of the Philippine Sea plate relative to the Eurasian plate. Tectonophysics 421, 209–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taira, A. 1985. Sedimentary evolution of Shikoku subduction zone: Shimanto Belt and Nankai Trough. In Formation of Ocean Margins, 1983 Oji Seminar Proceedings.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taira, A. & Niitsuma, N. 1986. Turbidite sedimentation in Nankai Trough as interpreted from magnetic fabric grain size and detrital mode analyses, DSDP-IPOD Leg 87. In DSDP Initial Reports, Leg 87 (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taira, A., Okada, M., Whitaker, J. H., McD. Smith, A. J. 1982. The Shimanto Belt of Japan: Cretaceous-Lower Miocene active-margin sedimentation. In Trench-Forearc Geology (ed. Leggett, J. K.), pp. 526. Special Publication of the Geological Society of London no. 10.Google Scholar
Taira, A., Saito, J. & Hashimoto, M. 1983. The role of oblique subduction and strike-slip tectonics in the evolution of Japan. In Geodynamics of the Western Pacific-Indonesian Region (eds. Hilde, T. W. C. & Uyeda, S.), pp. 303–16. American Geophysical Union, Geodynamics Series no. 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamano, T., Toba, T. & Aoki, Y. 1983. Development of forearc continental margins and their potential for hydrocarbon accumulation. Proceedings of the World Petroleum Congress, PD 3, (2), 111.Google Scholar
Underwood, M. B. & Bachman, S. B., 1982. Sedimentary facies associations within subduction complexes. In Trench-Forearc Geology (ed. Leggett, J. K.), pp. 537–50. Special Publication of the Geological Society of London. no. 10.Google Scholar
Zuffa, G. G. 1980. Hybrid arenites: their composition and classification. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 50, 21–9.Google Scholar
Zuffa, G. G. 1985. Optical analyses of arenites: influence of methodology on compositional results In Provenance of Arenites (ed. Zuffa, G. G.), pp. 165–89. Dordrecht: NATO Reidel Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar