GLOBAL PLATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM ORDIVICIAN TO SILURIAN: KINEMATICS TEST OF THEIR LOCATIONS OF THREE CHINA'S CONTINENTS AND OCEAN-CONTINENT CONFIGURATION

The positions of the three China's continents, the continents of North China, Tarim and South China, are the key issues to the reconstruction of Ordovician and Silurian global plate framework and ocean-land distribution pattern, since it concerns the reconstruction of the paleo-Asian land and the proto-Tethyan ocean. In this paper, we have made a review of evidence in paleomagnetism,geochemistry, paleontology and paleoclimate, then reconstructed the ocean-continent pattern and plate evolutionary history of the three China's continents, upon the global plate reconstruction model. Plate velocity field is used to identify the plate boundary and its attribute. Our data suggests that the three China's continents were all in the lower latitude throughout the Ordovician and Silurian, and independent from other continents, discretely located in the paleo-Asian and proto-Tethyan oceans. The North China Block occurred not far from the eastern part of the Siberia in early Ordovician, the South China Block drifted along the Gondwana throughout the Ordovician and Silurian, Whereas the Tarim Block moved for a long distance from the southern to the northern hemisphere during the Ordovician, then westward drifted in Silurian. The three China's continents were not far from each other, and sometimes interacted with each other. During this period, the proto-Tethyan Ocean subducted under the Gondwana and North China Block constantly until the opening of the paleo-Tethyan Ocean.