Rb-Sr isotope age of the Shangdaheyan intrusion in the Bogda Shan region and its geological implications

The Bogda Shan orogenic belt is interpreted to be an Upper Palaeozoic continental rift, which was closed towards the end of the Carboniferous period. Intrusive activities in that belt are represented mainly by a large number of diabasic sills, dykes and stocks with sparse dioritic and granitic bodies. Determinations on a group of samples from the Shangdaheyan intrusion yielded a mineral-rock Rb-Sr isochron with an age of 298.4 ± 0.76 Ma and an initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.7041. In combination with field evidence, these results indicate that most of the intrusions of the Bogda Shan orogenic belt were emplaced during the Hercynian cycle as a result of initial extension following rift closure, and that post-Hercynian intrusive activities are not important in that belt.