The HP-UHP rocks yielded retrograde metamorphic ages of ca. 470–450 Ma and ca. 420–400 Ma. These ages are identical to the age of magmatic events in the North Qinling HP-UHP belt at ~ 500 Ma, ~ 450 Ma and ~ 420 Ma, related to deep subduction/collision, slab-breakoff and crustal thinning during post-collisional extension. The dominant ca. 500–400 Ma ages of detrital zircons from the Liuling Group of the South Qinling belt match well with those from the three stages of magmatic rocks and HP-UHP rocks in the Qinling Complex. This correlation suggests that the magmatic rocks and HP-UHP metamorphic rocks in the North Qinling belt initially exhumed to the surface, eroded and were then deposited in the Liuling basin in a post-orogenic extensional setting during middle to late Devonian.
New evidence suggests that the Qinling Complex is a tectonic complex rather than a uniform stratigraphic unit or a microcontinent as previously believed, and is mainly composed of the exhumed HP-UHP metamorphic rocks, deep subduction- exhumation-related magmatic rocks and the early Neoproterozoic granites together with the host rocks from the over-riding plate at an active continental margin. The early Paleozoic tectonic history of the NQB includes oceanic slab subduction and formation of arc, backarc spreading, continental deep subduction, arc-continent collision, break off, and multi-stage exhumation of the deep subducted slab, as well as extension and thinning and associated erosion and deposition.