Evidence of lateral asthenosphere flow beneath the South China craton driven by both Pacific plate subduction and the India- Eurasia continental collision.

South China Cenozoic basalts ( SCCB) are regionally distributed at the south-east coastal area and can be grouped into three zones: a western zone (>38 Ma), a central zone (17-8 Ma) and an eastern zone (<8 Ma), leaving a temporal gap at 38-17 Ma between the western and central zones. An eastward migration of the SCCB could therefore be identified by the systematic decrease in the eruption age from the western inland to the eastern coast. We propose that most SCCB were associated with the lateral asthenospheric flows moving along the lithosphere/asthenosphere boundary ( LAB) beneath South China and the subsequent decompressional partial melting. The lateral asthenospheric flows had been pulled by the eastward retreat of the pan-Pacific plate subduction before 38 Ma and have been pushed by the northward indentation of the Indian plate into the Eurasian plate since 17 Ma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]