The Late Cenozoic strata are 313 m thick, revealed by the drilling core PD-99 in the south Changjiang delta. Monazite chemical dating shows that 350-500-Ma monazites predominate in the Pliocene and 100-275-Ma monazites in the Quaternary, indicating a great change of their provenance. The first presence horizon of monazites younger than 25 Ma is just above the Matruyama/Gauss boundary (~2.58 Ma), whch is exactly when uplift of the Tibetan Plateau began to influence deposition in the East China Sea. Variations in contents of monazites younger than 25 Ma can be divided into two sections. The Early-Middle Pleistocene with less <25 Ma monazites corresponds with rapid uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and the Late Pleistocene with more <25 Ma monazites parallels the peak uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. This study demonstrates that chemical dating of monazites in the river-mouth strata is a useful method to explore changes of river drainage basins, and deconvolute multistage tectonic and magmatic activity histories in the provenance areas.
