Abstract: Evolution of the Yangtze River in East Asia is closely linked to the evolving topography following India-Eurasia collision and plays an important role in connecting the Tibetan plateau and the marginal sea, which is of great significance for understanding the evolution of modern Asian landform pattern and exploring the response of river development to tectonic uplift and monsoon evolution. Thus, many methods have been performed to reconstruct the evolution history of the Yangtze River, but there are still some disputes about the age of the Yangtze River, which has been strongly debated for over a century with estimates ranging from late Cretaceous to late Pleistocene. At present, sediment provenance tracing is one of the most important methods for studying the Yangtze River drainage evolution, for the provenance tracers could effectively represent the source area information and the various dating methods would provide reliable chronology framework. Previous studies showed that the zircon high closure temperature, wide distribution in fluvial sediment, and convenient sampling and analyzing made the zircon U-Pb dating a unique indicator recording the source area information. However, the Yangtze River drains a large basin and runs through different geological blocks with complicated lithology, as well as the abundant thermal historical events, leading to the zircon U-Pb dating a challenge work in tracing the sediment source within the Yangtze River Basin. In this study, based on the combination of previous research data and the "source to sink" system, the limitations and disadvantages of the detrital zircon U-Pb dating in the studies of sediment provenance tracing of the Yangtze River Basin were re-analyzed and re-discussed. Considering the evolving process of the large river system, some key areas and diagnostic information carrier, including bedrock and fluvial sediments deposited in present day or geo-history, would provide significant constraints on the evolution process. The former records the original information of the source region, and the latter reserves the practical information preserved in the downstream sink.
As for the Yangtze River Basin, the limitation and disadvantages of the detrital zircon U-Pb dating in tracing sediment provenance are showed as follows:Firstly, six major tectonic units in the source region shows four similar age peaks, which closely corresponds to the previously identified synchronous major granitoid magmatic episodes. Five similar age peaks obviously exist in the sediment of the downstream sink both in the modern fluvial sediment and the geo-historical deposits such as outcrops and basin sediments. Thus, detrital zircon U-Pb chronology is indistinguishable from source to sink, making it unreliable in provenance tracing of the Yangtze River. Secondly, comparing with the detrital zircon spectra of tributary downstream and the upper reaches, all the tributaries below the Three Gores, the running-through of which is regarded as the symbol of the establishment of the modern Yangtze River system, could make up the similar spectra with the modern river sediments. Moreover, Sichuan Basin and Jianghan Basin, which is the last basin and first basin in western and eastern of the Three Gorges, are crucial basins for recording the incision information. However, sediment in these two basins show the similar spectra with five major age peaks from early Jurassic to late Cretaceous, which means the detrital zircon U-Pb chronology could not efficiently record the capture information no matter in spatial scale or time scale. In addition, the same results are also shown in Neogene gravel layer both in Jianghan Basin and Nanjing area. In summary, we propose that the similarity of the detrital zircon age spectra exists widely in Yangtze River system, and this greatly restricts the application of detrital zircon chronology in provenance tracing in the Yangtze River Basin, and the combination of multi-index and multi-method will shed new light in the future studies of provenance tracing within Yangtze River drainage system.

Key words: detrital zircon, U-Pb chronology, provenance, Yangtze River

摘要： 长江的演化对于了解现代亚洲地貌格局的演变，以及探讨河流发育对构造隆升和季风演化的响应均具有十分重要的意义。前人已采用多种方法厘定长江的演化历史，但对长江贯通时限等问题仍存在较大的争议。目前物源示踪是进行河流演化研究的重要方法之一，其关键在于选取的示踪剂能够有效地代表源区信息并能准确定年。锆石的封闭温度高，可十分稳定地记录源区信息，且在河流中广泛存在，采集样品方便，锆石U-Pb年代学分析方法成熟，因而广泛应用于长江流域物源示踪研究。但长江流域面积广泛，流经的地质单元岩性复杂，流域内热历史信息丰富，这导致单纯利用该方法进行物源示踪研究面临诸多亟待解决的问题。文中在国内外研究资料的基础上，基于从"源"到"汇"系统的研究思路，通过对比分析，指出基于碎屑锆石U-Pb年代学进行长江流域物源示踪研究的局限性以及需要注意的问题。

关键词: 碎屑锆石, U-Pb年代学, 物源示踪, 长江流域