Age and Structural Origin of the Tertiary Churyeong Breccia in the Gyeongju City, Korea

Synthetic analyses of field data, including rock facies, contact relationships, petrography, structural elements, and etc., and previous geochemical and absolute age data of the Tertiary Churyeong Breccia and its surrounding volcanics in the Gyeongju city, Korea, have led to the following results. (1) The Tertiary rocks are divided into the dacitic tuffs, Churyeong Breccia, and andesitic rocks in ascending order. The dacitic tuffs are unconformably overlain by the Churyeong Breccia which is intruded by or conformably overlain by the andesitic rocks. (2) The dacitic tuffs are correlated with the PaleoceneEocene Wangsan dacitic volcanics, while the Churyeong Breccia and andesitic rocks are correlated with the early Early Miocene Andongri Formation and Yongdongri Tuffs in the Waeup Basin, respectively. (3) The Churyeong Breccia accumulated rapidly in the NE-trending graben about 1.5 km in width during the crustal extension in the NW-SE direction due to the East Sea opening. (4) Daciticandesitic volcanism and crustal extension were active during the early Early Miocene times in SE Korean peninsula. During the deposition the Churyeong Breccia, especially, the volcanism ceased for some time, but the active normal faulting led to the formation of grabens in places.