Crustal thickness, properties and its relations to mineralization in the southeastern part of South China: Constraint from the teleseismic receiver functions

South China is tectonically composed of the Yangtze block and Cathysian block, with very complicated architecture and deformation characteristics as well as various mineral deposits. In the past years, various geoscience studies focused on the metallogenic process and geodynamics has been conducted in the fields of petrology, chronology, mineral deposits, geochemistry and geophysics in this area. As the architecture and properties of the deep crust resulted from the tectonic evolution process and geodynamics, they would contain key information for understanding the formation of large metallogenic belt and ore concentration area. With the aim of studying the deep crustal structure and metallogenic background, the authors calculated the crustal thickness and Vp/Vs ratio with the method of H-κ scanning of P-wave teleseismic receiver functions using the seismic data provided by China Earthquake Network Center. The results reveal that the crustal thickness in the study region varies slightly and gets deeper from east to west, and the distribution of Vp/Vs ratio is correlated well with the tectonics and metallogenic belts. Combined with the existent geological studies, the authors hold that the crustal thinning in this region was related to the strong magmatism and metalogenic process in the Yanshanian period, and the upwelling of hot materials from the upper mantle was probably the driving force for the eruption of mineral resources in this region. On the other hand, the distribution of crustal thickness and Vp/Vs ratio is correlated well with the tectonic boundaries estimated from the edge detection of gravity data.