Architecture of Continental Rifting in the South Korea Plateau: Constraints to the Evolution of the Eastern Korea Margin and the Opening of the East Sea (Japan Sea)

Abstract

The Korea Plateau is a continental fragment rifted and partially segmented from the Korean Peninsulaat the initial stage of the opening of the East Sea (Japan Sea). We interpreted marine seismic profiles from the South Korea Plateau in conjunction with swath bathymetric to investigate processes of con-tjnental rifting and separation of the southwestern Japan Arc. The SouU-i Korea Plateau preserves funda-mental elements of rift architecture comprising a seaward succession of a rift basin and an uplifted rift flank passing into the slope, typical of a passive continental margin. Two distinguished rift basins (Onnuri and Bandal Basins) in the South Korea Plateau are bounded by major synthetic and smaller antithetic faults, creating wide and symmetric profiles. The large-offset border fault zones of these basins have convex dip slopes and demonstrate a zig-zag arrangement along strike. Rifting was primarily controlled by normal faulting resulting from extension orthogonal to the inferred line of breakup along the base ofthe slope rather U-ian strike-slip deformation. Two extension direcdons for rifdng are recog-nized; U-ie Onnuri Basin was rifted in U-ie EW direction; U-ie Bandal Basin in U-ie EW and NW-SE directions, suggesting two rift stages. We interpret that the E-W direction represents initial rifting at the inner margin; while the Japan Basin widened, rifting propagated repeatedly from the Japan Basin to the southeast toward the Korean margin but could not penetrate the strong continental lithosphere of the Korean Shield and changed direction to the south, resulting in E-W extension to create the rift basins at the Korean margin. The Hupo Basin to the south of the Korea Plateau is estimated to have formed in this process. The NW-SE direction probably represents the direction of rifting orthogonal to the inferred line of breakup along the base of the slope of the South Korea Plateau; after breakup the southwestern Japan Arc separated in the SE direction, indicating a response to tensional tectonics associated with the subduction of the Pacific Plate in the NE direction. We suggest that structural evolution of the eastern Korean margin can be explained by the processes occurring at the passive continental margin.