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Qinling Mountainous chain is a part of the central mountainous chain in China’s territory. It forms a natural boundary dividing the China’s territory into the south part and the north part that are featured in different natural geographic factors in geology, biology, water system, soil, climate and even culture. The compound orogenic zone of Qinling Mountains is an important part of the China’s central mountainous chain, which is also a transitional zone in between the south and north tectonics of China’s territory. The complicated components and abundant natural resources in Qinling Mountains have been paid great interests by professionals and experts from home and abroad.
Geotourism to the Fengyu Valley starts from the entrance of the Fengyu Valley, through the Qinling ridge and south to the Shagoujie area. Stratigraphic outcrops along the itinerary include the Anping Formation (about 500 million years old) of the Paleozoic Erlangping Group and the Guozhuang Formation (about 2.2 billion years old) of the Paleoproterozoic Qinling Group, lithology of which is dominant in metamorphosed rocks. The Paleozoic and Mesozoic Granites are common in this area. The itinerary also passes through the Guanshi ductile-shear zone and the Huagoujie suture zone between the North China’s Plate and the Yangtze Plate.
Along the itinerary, varieties of metamorphosed rocks and tectonic features of ductile-shear zone are visible to the visitors, including granitic mylonite, augen mylonitic gneiss, basic inclusion, A-type rheomorphic fold, multigrade ductile shearing zones and syntectonic secretion veins.
Piedmont fault at the north side of Qinling Mountains is a natural demarcation line between Qinling Mountains and the Weihe fluvial plain, which is also a marginal fault of the Weihe complex graben. The fault elongates along the piedmont of Qinling Mountains for over 100 kilometers in approximate east-west direction. The major fault plane dips to north and is featured in steep at the upper and gentle in the lower parts. A height difference occurred along the piedmont fault between Qinling Mountains and the Weihe basin, in which fault facets and pluvial fans were developed well. In the Weihe Basin developed the Quaternary sediments with a great thickness, showing a great raise of Qinling Mountains during the neotectonic movement.
A fluvial fan is formed when river water flows out from mountain side to the open plain, in which a lot of materials accumulated in the plain as a fan. The fluvial beds have a clear sedimentary sequence with pebble layers at the lower part and loessial layers at the upper part.
The heritage of fluvial fan was formed when the Fenghe River flows out from the mountain side to the open plain, in which the pebble layers remained when Qinling Mountains moved upward and the Fenghe River incised the river bed downwards intensively. The end part of the fluvial fan is resulted from incision of the Qinling piedmont faults about 10,000 years ago.
Jingye temple is one of the 142 key Buddhist Temples in China under State Protection. It is located on Fenghuang Hill of the Nanwutai Scenic area, 35 kilometers to the city town of Xi’an. The temple was built in the end of the Sui Dynasty (618 A.D.). In the beginning of Tang Dynasty (667 A.D), it was a place where Monk Daoxuan held the rites. He studied and propagated a sect of religious discipline here attentively. Now the current Buddhist abbot in the temple is Master Benru who is 32 years old from Xiamen, Fujian Province. He became a monk in 1988 and paid respects to Master Miaozhan.
A fault contact is present in between the Tertiary pink-colored granite and the Paleozoic grey-colored granite.
Regionally, the lithology of the Erlangping Group consists of biotitic plagioclase schist, biotitic granulite, amphibolite, chlorite-albite schist and marble intercalated with albite tremolite, the protolith of which was intermediate-basic volcanic rocks intercalated with limestone. The isotopic dating has got the age about 500 million years.
Along the itinerary, the Erlangping Formation occurs in granite, in which assimilation and hybridization are well developed, showing clear migmatization. In this place, we can see the residual parts of the Erlangping Group, including biotitic plagioclase gneiss, banded marble and micaceous quartz schist.
Gneiss of the Qinling Group overthrusted from south to north on the Erlangping Group, between which is a thick ductile shear zone. Along the overthrust nappe structure, granitic mylonite, augen mylonitic gneiss, porphyrocrystallic mylonite, basic inclusion, asymmetric shearing folds, A-type rheomorphic fold, stretching lineation and multiple shearing zones are well developed, showing a strong orogenics of Qinling Mountains in the Indo-Sinian period.
The Paleoproterozoic Qinling Group is a crystallized basement in the north Qinling terrain, which had been experienced multiple reformation of crustal movement, forming a set of high-grade gneiss, amphibolite and various migmatites. The protolith of the rocks was mainly epicontinental clastic rocks, a little continental flood tholeiite and acidic volcanic rocks, the isotopic age of which is about 2.2 billion years.
Regionally, the suture zone is called the Shang-Dan fault zone, which is a boundary tectonic zone in between the crystallized basement of the Qinling terrane and the microcontinents of southern Qinling Mountains. During the Indo-Sinian period, slight metamorphosed sediments of the Devonian System in the south of Qinling Mountains underthrusted to the crystal basement of the Northern Qinling Mountains, forming a huge boundary structural zone with mosaic properties of plates, in which multiple obduction-collision granite, A-type rheomorphic fold, stretching foliation and late superimposed faults are included. The suture zone has a length of 1,500 m, in which the augen mylonite has an isotopic age about 219 million years.
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