Late Permian basalts in the Yanghe area, eastern Sichuan Province, SW China: Implications for the geodynamics of the Emeishan flood basalt province and Permian global mass extinction

We report the finding of a ∼20 m thick sequence of massive pyroxene–plagioclase–phyric basalt lava flows in the Yanghe area of the northeastern Sichuan Basin, within the Yangtze craton of SW China, which were previously considered to be located outside the Emeishan flood basalt province. This basaltic sequence above the middle Permian Maokou Formation (Fm.) is overlain by the late Permian Longtan Fm. Thus, the Yanghe basalts should be...