Zircon SHRIMP U-Pb dating for gabbro at Chaotiehe in the Haicheng area, eastern Liaoning

Chaotiehe gabbroic intrusion in the eastern part of Liaoning Province was dated by the zircon SHRIMP U-Pb technique. The results gave an emplacement age of 126±4 Ma, indicating that the intrusion thus formed during the lithospheric thinning of the North China Craton (NCC) in the Early Cretaceous rather than in a rifting setting during the Paleoproterozoic as previously thought. The gabbroic intrusion contains abundant old zircons with Paleoproterozoic (2.10–2.46 Ga and ca. 1.87 Ga) and Neoproterozoic (747–969 Ma) ages. The Paleoproterozoic zircons were probably derived from NCC itself, whereas the Neoproterozoic ones were likely from materials of the Yangtze Craton that had previously been subducted beneath NCC. These geochronological dates are of important implications for understanding the Mesozoic crustal evolution of NCC.