Abstract Starting in the early 1950s, palaeontologists began to discover a wide range of Cretaceous terrestrial fossils in the Laiyang, Qingshan and Wangshi groups of the Jiaolai Basin, which resides in the eastern part of the Shandong Peninsula of northern China. Significant specimens from these deposits include various dinosaur eggs, footprints and fossils, including hadrosauroids, tyrannosaurids and ankylosaurids. These expanded the understanding of evolution, biodiversity and palaeoecology in East Asia. While many examples of the Jehol Biota from this area are not well constrained in terms of their stratigraphy and geochronology, previous studies have generally suggested that fossils from this region represent the second or third phase of Jehol Biota development. This paper reviews fossils, stratigraphic correlations, tectonic history and age estimates for the less well-studied outcrops of the Shandong Peninsula that host the Jehol Biota. We report three new 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages for the Qingshang Group and discuss how these somewhat imprecise ages still constrain chronostratigraphic interpretation for the fossil-rich units.

Abstract The Dabie–Sulu orogenic belt in east-central China contains one of the largest ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphic terranes in the world. The UHP eclogites are associated with gneiss, peridotite and marble. But all these rocks underwent in situ UHP metamorphism during the continental collision in the Triassic. Although fluid action is not significant during cold subduction, it becomes prominent during hot exhumation of UHP slices. Whereas the composition of UHP metamorphic rocks is primarily inherited from their protoliths, they were locally modified by partial melting to varying extents. The partial melting of UHP rocks is highly heterogeneous along the collisional orogen, and achieves a maximum during rifting orogeny at the post-collisional stage. This paper outlines the petrographical features and geochemical compositions of UHP metamorphic rocks, and presents an overview of collisional modification and post-collisional reworking of the subducted continental crust. Further discussions are devoted to continental subduction tectonics, as well as to subduction style, subduction polarity and exhumation mechanism. The results also provide insights into the initiation of continental rifting in a Wilson cycle. Consequently, studies of the Dabie–Sulu orogenic belt have contributed greatly to our understanding of tectonic processes, fluid regime and chemical geodynamics in continental subduction zones.