Position of South China in configuration of Neoproterozoic supercontinent

Configuration and evolution of Neoproterozoic su- percontinent and the position of South China within it have been very important targets in earth sciences concerning many forefront topics of general interest. In the common reconstruction of the supercontinent Rodinia, South China was located between Australia and Laurentia, and thus lies in the center of the supercontinent and southeast of Aus- tralia^1]. According to the new paleomagnetic and geo- chronological data for the ~800 Ma Xiaofeng dyke in Yi-chang as well as existing data, Li et al.^2] suggest that Rodinia would probably spread from the equator to the polar region at about 800 Ma, followed by a rapid ca. 90° rotation around an axis near Greenland that brought the entire supercontinent to a low-latitude position by ca. 750 Ma. As a result, South China is reinterpreted to be placed adjacent to both Australia and India, with a rapid shift of rotation from a position northeast of Australia and south-east of India at about 800 Ma (Fig. 1(a)) to a position northwest of Australia and northeast of India at about 750 Ma (Fig. 1(b)). By combining existing paleomagnetic data3] with their new paleomagnetic data for the Cambrian sediments in the Sichuan Basin, Yang et al.^4] also place South China against northwestern Australia but remote southeast of India at about 755 Ma.