Igneous history of the Andean Cordillera and Patagonian plateau around latitude 46°S

From the Middle Jurassic onwards persistent igneous activity in the southern Andes around 46 °S was controlled by easterly dipping subduction along the Pacific margin. Cogenetic plutonic rocks belonging to the Patagonian batholith, and calc-alkaline volcanics ranging from basaltic andesites to rhyolitic tuffs and ignimbrites are the principal products. Erosion of the primary volcanics has led at various times to the development of thick volcaniclastic sequences, for example in the Cretaceous-Lower Tertiary Divisadero formation. The Coyhaique region marks the northerly extension of a narrow back-arc basin in which the marine Neocomian successions accumulated. Volcaniclastics from the island arc, which presumably lay to the west, are intercalated with the sediments. Although the marine basin was short-lived a mildly extensional back-arc regime may have existed through much of Mesozoic-Recent times. Widespread basalt-rhyolite volcanism on the eastern side of the cordillera seems to have been associated with this tectonic environment. Remnants of the Patagonian basalt plateau at latitude 45-47 °S extend from the Argentine-Chile frontier to Lago Colhue Huapi. Four principal age and compositional groups have been distinguished in the lavas, (i) The oldest, which are about 80 Ma, occur in sections at Senguerr and Morro Negro. They are almost exclusively tholeiitic, but show some calc-alkaline affinities and resemble in other respects basalts from marginal basins, (ii) The second group (57-43 Ma) occur in the lower part of the Chile Chico section with a compositional spread from olivine tholeiites through alkali basalts to one occurrence of a basanite. (iii) The upper part of the main plateau sequence, where the flows are in the range 25-9 Ma, are dominantly of alkali basalt composition, (iv) Post-plateau flows from small cinder cones on the surface of the plateau range in age from ca. 4 Ma to 0.2 Ma or less. They are mostly highly undersaturated basanites, with occasional leucite basanites, enriched in incompatible elements. A few of the earlier tholeiites with calc-alkali traits may have been closely associated with subduction or marginal basin processes. The younger lavas are more alkalic intraplate types generated in the remote back-arc extensional zone.

1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 994-999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvi Ben-Avraham ◽  
Amos Nur

On land much of the Pacific margin is composed of allochthonous terranes, which are of continental and noncontinental origins. In the oceans numerous oceanic rises, some of which are submerged continental fragments, are presently embedded in the oceanic plates. These oceanic rises are probably future accreted terranes. They thus represent one stage in the development of allochthonous terranes found in orogenic zones. Minerals found in these terranes were formed at locations that in the past could have been thousands of kilometres away. This is because some oceanic terranes were split into several parts that moved with their respective plates in different directions. Also, faulting at the continental margins caused large-scale concurrent and post-accretionary horizontal translations of hundreds of kilometres of the allochthonous terranes.Studying the allochthonous terranes may provide important information about the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic history of the Pacific Ocean, because most of the oceanic crust of this age has disappeared leaving only those allochthonous terranes that were once oceanic plateaus within this crust. Understanding the history of the Pacific basin plates and of the allochthonous terranes may lead to the discovery of minerals within the submerged oceanic plateaus.


The results of recent geochemical investigations of several island arc - marginal basin systems in the Scotia Sea area and in the western Pacific are outlined. Marginal basins in different stages of evolution are represented, from those in the initial stages of formation to those with an extensive and multiple history of back-arc spreading. Some are completely intraoceanic, others have developed at continental margins. Basalts erupted at back-arc spreading centres seem to be as geochemically varied as those from normal mid-ocean ridges, and record evidence for similar processes of partial melting, fractional crystallization and magma mixing in their genesis. They appear to have been derived from mantle sources with incompatible trace element characteristics ranging from ‘depleted’ to ‘enriched’, but with the ‘enriched’ mantle sources being sampled during the earlier stages of back-arc spreading. Submarine back-arc basalts are more vesicular than their normal ocean ridge equivalents, and their corresponding glasses have higher water contents. This, together with other geochemical features such as the higher ratios of lithophile to high field strength elements in some back-arc basalts, suggests that a component from the subducted slab may be involved in their petrogenesis. The chemistry of the corresponding arc volcanics is described in relation to the subduction and extensions history of marginal basin development. In intraoceanic arcs the early stages of arc magmatism are dominated by the eruption of large volumes of island arc tholeiites and subsidiary high-Mg andesites. In the Mariana region, after the initial volcanic arc is split and separated by back-arc spreading, the later frontal arc volcanics have calc-alkaline characteristics. Basalts erupted during the early stages of back-arc spreading more commonly have arc-like geochemical features when the marginal basin has developed through splitting of a calc-alkaline volcanic arc. The secular variation in the geochemistry of the arc volcanics may be related to the progressive development of a lithophile element enriched mantle source beneath the arc. This source contributes to the basalts produced during the early stages of arc rifting and back-arc spreading. Ophiolite complexes which represent marginal basin floor may well carry these arc-like geochemical features.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiying He ◽  
Peter Cawood ◽  
Yuejun Wang

<p>In Southeast Asia, establishing the origin and associated tectonic setting of Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic igneous rocks is complicated by structural overprinting and the complex tectonic evolution of the Paleotethyan regime. Hainan Island, located at the south-eastern margin of the Paleotethys, and lacking significant tectonic overprints is a key to understand amalgamation history of the Indochina and South China blocks and to constraining the tectonic evolution of Paleotethys ocean in southeast Asia.</p><p>The Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic record of igneous rocks on Hainan Island includes the following. 1) ca. 350 Ma island arc andesites and ca. 330 Ma metabasites, the latter with both MORB- and arc-like geochemical affinities, positive ε<sub>Nd</sub>(t) values of +5.86 – +9.85 and rare inherited zircons with a zircon age of 1400 Ma inferred to be derived from a MORB source with the input of a slab-derived component. Together with the ~350 Ma island arc andesites, the Carboniferous tectonic environment is supposed to be a continental back-arc basin setting. 2) Late Permian gneiss granitoids (272-252 Ma) characterized by a gneissic foliation and calc-alkaline I-type geochemical affinities with negative Nb-Ta and Ti anomalies, related to metasomatized mantle wedge modified by the sediment-derived component in a continental arc setting. 3) ca. 257 Ma arc-like andesites, which further validate a subduction-related setting. 4) Peraluminious Early-Middle Triassic massive granitoids (251–243 Ma) with slightly high A/CNK ratios, δ<sup>18</sup>O values (up to 11.75 ‰) and Sr/Y ratios, inferred to have formed in a compressive regime from a mixed source of greywacke and metabasite. 5) Middle-Late Triassic (242–225 Ma) high-K calc-alkaline granitoids with high zircon temperatures (842–867°C) and geochemical signatures of A-type granites. They show slightly low whole-rock ε<sub>Nd</sub>(t) and zircon ε<sub>Hf</sub>(t) values, suggestive of the derivation from a metabasite–greywacke source in an extensional setting. 6) ca. 240 Ma gabbro-dolerites showing enrichment in LILEs, depletion in HFSEs, negative ε<sub>Nd</sub> (t)-ε<sub>Hf</sub> (t) values (−8.45 to −1.05 and −5.9 to −2.7, respectively) and crustal-like δ<sup>18</sup>O values (7.26–8.70‰), it is implied that the Hainan Island entered into post-collisional environment in response to the asthenosphere upwelling shortly after the closure of back-arc basin.</p><p>Thus, Hainan Island provides a record of Carboniferous back-arc basin opening, followed by an extended Permian–Triassic history of subduction-related consumption leading to orogenic assembly and extensional collapse between the South China and Indochina blocks. Such a tempo-spatial pattern is consistent with that along the Song Ma–Ailaoshan suture zone rather than the magmatic history of eastern South China and indicates that the Paleotethys extended west to at least Hainan Island in the Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic.</p>


Author(s):  
C. W. Rapela ◽  
R. J. Pankhurst

ABSTRACT:In Patagonia a Triassic-Early Jurassic Cordilleran interior magmatic belt preceded the widespread eruption of Middle Jurassic syn-extensional rhyolites. Two plutons (La Calandria and La Leona) represent the easternmost plutonic rocks of this belt, > 750 km east of the present oceanic trench. They define a high-K calc-alkaline monzonite series in contrast with the main Andinotype arc magmatism of the Pacific margin: they are enriched in large ion lithophile elements (K, Rb, Ba, Sr and Th), LREE and P2O5and depleted in HREE and Y, with low FeO*/MgO ratio. The range of observed compositions (56-76% SiO2) resulted from high-level fractionation of plagioclase, hornbleńde, biotite, K-feldspar and accessories (sphene, apatite and zircon).Initial87Sr/86Sr ratios, average εNdtand mean depleted-mantle Nd model ages of the two plutons are 0·70487, -0·5 and 1050 Ma for La Calandria and 0·70509, -1·4 and 1125 Ma for La Leona, respectively. They are thus isotopically more primitive than the Middle Jurassic rhyolites, previously attributed to partial melting of Mesoproterozoic mafic lower crust. The preferred model for the origin of the monzonites is remelting of an amphibole- + garnet-bearing, plagioclase-poor, high-K mafic source (?underplating). This occurred in a distal sector of a dying oblique subduction regime, immediately preceding the extensional silicic volcanism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jitoko Kelepi Cama ◽  
Sonal Singh Nagra

Post-graduate surgical training at the Fiji National University (FNU), previously known as the Fiji School of Medicine) has recently been updated by incorporating elements from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) training curriculum. The revised curriculum maintains strong contextual relevance to the needs and pathologies of the Pacific Island nations.  This paper outlines why the FNU surgical postgraduate training programme should be applauded as a successful programme in the training of surgeons for the region.


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