Consequences of Continental Core Complexes on Rifting Patterns: Insights From Multichannel Seismic Data From the Northern Margin of the South China Sea

Core complex type structures are common in continental margins. Recent studies have proposed exhumation of deeper crustal and mantle levels during extension of the continental margin along the Northern South China Sea (NSCS) in a core complex mode. Here, we present high-resolution seismic profiles across different sections of the NSCS that allow us to observe two types of core complex systems. The Kaiping Rift and eastern Baiyun Rift are characterized by a sub-horizontal Moho and exhumation of ductile deeper crust beneath an extremely thinned brittle upper crust. The central Baiyun Rift in contrast is marked by homogeneous thinning of the entire crust that is floored by mantle unroofing with a concave-down Moho geometry. While the former type, referred to as crustal core complexes, coincides with relatively intense syn-rift magmatism, the latter, referred to as mantle core complexes, is marked by limited magmatism. Consistently, basin subsidence rates are lower over crustal core complexes than mantle core complexes. Compared to mantle core complexes at the magma-poor Iberian margin, the widely distributed crustal core complexes in the NSCS indicate higher geotherms and more intense magmatism during extension of the continental lithosphere. We propose that the continental core complexes observed at the NSCS represent a typical outcome of extension of a gravitationally unstable lithosphere.