View article

Southeast Asia consists of several microcontinents that detached from the northeastern margin of Gondwanaland. The Song Ma belt in northern Vietnam consists of ophiolite, metabasite, metasedimentary rocks and eclogite, and it is thought to be a suture zone between the Indochina and South China blocks. However, the nature and boundaries of the Song Ma belt and the collision age of the two blocks have long been debated. In this article, petrological and geochemical studies on the Song Ma ophiolite and eclogite and first sensitive high‐resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) age dating of eclogite provide new light to resolve such debate. Eclogite consisting of garnet, omphacite, phengite, quartz, barroisite and rutile is closely associated with garnet–phengite–quartz schist in the ‘Nam Co antiform’, a northern subunit of the Song Ma belt. The eclogite experienced a three‐stage metamorphic evolution: (I) pre …