Abstract
Fission track (FT) thermochronological analyses on Mesozoic granites provide new information about cooling and uplift histories in Southeast Korea. Twenty-nine new FT sphene, zircon and apatite ages and seven track length measurements are presented for eleven granite samples. Measured mineral ages against assumed closure temperatures yield cooling rates for each sample. Relatively rapid (7-$15^{\circ}C$/Ma) and simple cooling patterns from the middle Cretaceouss (ca. 90-100 Ma) granites are caused mainly by a high thermal contrast between the intruding magma and country rocks at shallow crustal levels (ca. 1-2.5 km-depths). On the contrary, a slow overall cooling (1-$4^{\circ}C$/Ma) of the Triassic to Jurassic granites (ca. 250-200 Ma), emplaced at deep depths (>>9 km), may mainly depend upon very slow denudation of the overlying crust. The uplift history of the Triassic Yeongdeog Pluton in the Yeongyang Subbasin, west of the Yangsan Fault, is characterized by a relatively rapid uplift (~0.4 mm/a) before the total unroofing of the pluton in the earliest Cretaceous (~140 Ma) followed by a subsidence (~0.2mm/a) during the Hayang Group sedimentation. Stability of original FT zircon ages (156 Ma) and complete erasure of apatite ages suggest a range of 3 to 5.5 km for the basin subsidence. Since 120 Ma up to present, the Yeongyang Subbasin has been slowly uplifted (~0.04 mm/a). The FT age patterns of Jurassic granites both from the northeastern wing of the Ryeongnam Massif and from the northern edge of the Pohang-Kampo Block indicate that the two geologic units have been slowly uplifted with a same mean rate (~0.04 mm/a) since early Cretaceous. Estimates of Cenozoic total uplifts since 100 Ma are different: Ryeongnam Massif (~6 km)=Pohang-Kampo Block (~6 km)>Yeongyang Subbasin(~4 km).