Development and Evolution History of Regional Geological Structures

The study shows that the Middle-Late Jurassic strata are absent or only sparsely distributed in the Yangtze plate where the study area is located, indicating that the study area was in a strong compressional collision orogeny process in the Middle-Late Jurassic. 

Due to the influence of Jurassic intracontinental orogeny, the Shennongjia-Huangling stable and rigid block began to uplift (160-95 Ma) and the surrounding caprock of the Shennongjia uplift was strongly deformed, resulting in the formation of a series of fold structures. On the eastern margin of the uplift, a series of NE-trending structures are formed between the two rigid blocks due to the extrusion of two rigid blocks in opposite directions, and the direction of the maximum horizontal principal compressive stress field changes from S-N to NW-SE. During the development of the Dabashan foreland structural belt, a series of skirt-like fold structures were formed on the western margin of the uplift due to the restriction of the Shennongjia-Huangling rigid block. The Shennongjia uplift also restricted the extension of the Xuefengshan arc structure, so the skirt-like fold structures also developed in the southern margin of the uplift. It is the "blocking" effect of this special "structural knot" on the Daba Mountain Arc and the Xuefeng Mountain Arc that leads to the union of two different arc tectonic systems near the "structural knot". The Himalayan Movement inherited the characteristics of the Yanshanian Movement. Since the Quaternary, the Shennongjia area has been in a large-scale uneven and intermittent upward movement, which is manifested as planation surfaces, layered karst and multistage river terraces. Under the action of endogenic and exogenic geological agents, the present geological and geomorphological landscape of the area is gradually formed.