Proterozoic evolution of the western margin of the Wyoming craton: implications for the tectonic and magmatic evolution of the northern Rocky Mountains

2006 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 1601-1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A Foster ◽  
Paul A Mueller ◽  
David W Mogk ◽  
Joseph L Wooden ◽  
James J Vogl

Defining the extent and age of basement provinces west of the exposed western margin of the Archean Wyoming craton has been elusive because of thick sedimentary cover and voluminous Cretaceous–Tertiary magmatism. U–Pb zircon geochronological data from small exposures of pre-Belt supergroup basement along the western side of the Wyoming craton, in southwestern Montana, reveal crystallization ages ranging from ~2.4 to ~1.8 Ga. Rock-forming events in the area as young as ~1.6 Ga are also indicated by isotopic (Nd, Pb, Sr) signatures and xenocrystic zircon populations in Cretaceous–Eocene granitoids. Most of this lithosphere is primitive, gives ages ~1.7–1.86 Ga, and occurs in a zone that extends west to the Neoproterozoic rifted margin of Laurentia. These data suggest that the basement west of the exposed Archean Wyoming craton contains accreted juvenile Paleoproterozoic arc-like terranes, along with a possible mafic underplate of similar age. This area is largely under the Mesoproterozoic Belt basin and intruded by the Idaho batholith. We refer to this Paleoproterozoic crust herein as the Selway terrane. The Selway terrane has been more easily reactivated and much more fertile for magma production and mineralization than the thick lithosphere of the Wyoming craton, and is of prime importance for evaluating Neoproterozoic continental reconstructions.

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 985 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. REISCHMANN ◽  
D. K. KOSTOPOULOS ◽  
S. LOOS ◽  
B. ANDERS ◽  
A. AVGERINAS ◽  
...  

We dated basement rocks from several localities southwest of Mt. Olympos, as well as from a locality near the top of the mountain using the single zircon Pb/Pb evaporation technique. For the samples southwest of the mountain, the ages obtained range from ca. 280 to 290 Ma, with only a few zircon grains being around 300 Ma. By contrast, the sample from near the top of the mountain appears to be slightly younger, with ca. 270 Ma. These ages imply that the granitoids crystallized during Late Carboniferous - Early Permian times, and are therefore younger than the basement gneisses of other regions of the Pelagonian zone, which yielded zircon ages of around 300 Ma (e.g. Yarwood & Aftalion 1976, Mountrakis 1983, De Bono 1998, Engel & Reischmann 2001). However, the ages obtained in the present study are identical, within error, to the muscovite Ar-Ar cooling ages from Mt. Ossa (Lips 1998). Our geochronological data show that the magmatic evolution for this part of the basement of the Pelagonian Zone lasted at least 30 Ma.


Author(s):  
Stefano Tavani ◽  
Pablo Granado ◽  
Amerigo Corradetti ◽  
Giovanni Camanni ◽  
Gianluca Vignaroli ◽  
...  

In accretionary convergent margins, the subduction interface is formed by a lower plate décollement above which sediments are scraped off and incorporated into the accretionary wedge. During subduction, the basal décollement is typically located within or at the base of the sedimentary pile. However, the transition to collision implies the accretion of the lower plate continental crust and deformation of its inherited rifted margin architecture. During this stage, the basal décollement may remain confined to shallow structural levels as during subduction or re-localize into the lower plate middle-lower crust. Modes and timing of such re-localization are still poorly understood. We present cases from the Zagros, Apennines, Oman, and Taiwan belts, all of which involve a former rifted margin and point to a marked influence of inherited rift-related structures on the décollement re-localization. A deep décollement level occurs in the outer sectors of all of these belts, i.e., in the zone involving the proximal domain of pre-orogenic rift systems. Older—and shallower—décollement levels are preserved in the upper and inner zones of the tectonic pile, which include the base of the sedimentary cover of the distal portions of the former rifted margins. We propose that thinning of the ductile middle crust in the necking domains during rifting, and its complete removal in the hyperextended domains, hampered the development of deep-seated décollements during the inception of shortening. Progressive orogenic involvement of the proximal rift domains, where the ductile middle crust was preserved upon rifting, favors its reactivation as a décollement in the frontal portion of the thrust system. Such décollement eventually links to the main subduction interface, favoring underplating and the upward motion of internal metamorphic units, leading to their final emplacement onto the previously developed tectonic stack.


1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hanmer ◽  
Michael Williams ◽  
Chris Kopf

Study of the northern Saskatchewan–District of Mackenzie segment of the Snowbird tectonic zone suggests that fragments of relatively stiff mid-Archean crust, possibly arc related, have controlled the localization, shape, and complex kinematics of the multistage Striding–Athabasca mylonite zone during the Archean, as well as the geometry of the Early Proterozoic rifted margin of the western Churchill continent. By the late Archean, the Striding–Athabasca mylonite zone was located in the interior of the western Churchill continent, well removed from the contemporaneous plate margins. Except for the Alberta segment, the Snowbird tectonic zone was not the site of an Early Proterozoic plate margin. We suggest that the geometry of the Archean–Early Proterozoic boundary in the western Canadian Shield represents a jagged continental margin, composed of a pair of reentrants defined by rifted and transform segments. These segments were inherited from Early Proterozoic breakup and controlled by the Archean structure of the interior of the western Churchill continent. The geometry of this margin appears to have strongly influenced the Early Proterozoic tectono-magmatic evolution of the western Canadian Shield.


2001 ◽  
Vol 38 (10) ◽  
pp. 1479-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek J Thorkelson ◽  
James K Mortensen ◽  
Robert A Creaser ◽  
Garry J Davidson ◽  
J Grant Abbott

Northwestern Laurentia, after cratonization at about 1.85 Ga, underwent a series of tectonic and magmatic events during the Proterozoic that were followed by separation of Laurentia from another landmass, probably Australia. The oldest magmatic event produced the Bonnet Plume River Intrusions (BPRI), which intruded the Wernecke Supergroup as short dikes and small stocks. The BPRI are hydrothermally altered tholeiitic diorites, gabbros, and subordinate anorthositic and syenitic rocks, with trace element signatures consistent with a rift origin. Depleted mantle model ages range from 2.29 to 2.57 Ga and εNdvalues range from +0.7 to –1.7. An increasing crustal component is apparent in rocks with more evolved compositions. Four U–Pb zircon ages (1705.9 ± 0.7, 1709.4 ± 1.4, 1711.1 ± 5.1, and 1713.6 ± 12.7 Ma) indicate a Paleoproterozoic age for the BPRI. These dates constrain the age of the Wernecke Supergroup to [Formula: see text] ca. 1710 Ma, making it the oldest supracrustal succession in western Laurentia, e.g., >240 Ma older than the Belt Supergroup of southeastern British Columbia and the northwestern United States. The Wernecke Supergroup was deposited in the first rift basin to open along the western margin of Laurentia, but was later inverted by the pre-1.6 Ga Racklan Orogeny, an event possibly influenced by transmission of compression from the Yavapai and Mazatzal orogenies in southern Laurentia. The Neoproterozoic southwestern United States – east Antarctica (SWEAT) reconstruction, which places Australia next to northwestern Laurentia, is supported by linkages between Paleoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic geological features in northwestern Canada and Australia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 178 (1) ◽  
pp. jgs2019-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ford ◽  
J. Vergés

In this field study we reinterpret the narrow eastern North Pyrenean Zone, France, as an inverted salt-rich transtensional rift system based on identification of halokinetic depositional sequences across rift platform to distal rift margin domains with a cumulative throw of >2.8 km on steep Cretaceous faults. The rift platform records extension on detached rotational faults above Triassic evaporites from Jurassic to Aptian with uplift and erosion during the Albian. Transtensional Aptian–Albian minibasins align along the salt-rich rift margin fault zone. In the Aptian–Albian main rift large en echelon synclinal minibasins developed between salt walls, although Jurassic diapiric evolution is likely. Upper Cretaceous units locally record continuing diapirism. The Boucheville and Bas Agly depocentres, altered by synrift HT metamorphism, form the distal rift domain terminating south against the North Pyrenean Fault. The narrowness of the Pyrenean rift, shape of minibasins, en echelon oblique synclinal depocentres and folds coupled with a discontinuous distribution and intensity of HT metamorphism support a transtensional regime along the Iberia–Europe plate margin during late Early and early Late Cretaceous. In this model, the distal European margin comprises deep faults limiting laterally discontinuous crustal domains and ‘hot’ pull-apart basins with mantle rocks directly beneath sedimentary cover.Supplementary material: A table summarizing the stratigraphy of the NE Pyrenees and an interpreted Google Earth view of the Quillan syncline and minibasin are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5100036


Lithos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 175-176 ◽  
pp. 86-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raimo Lahtinen ◽  
Hannu Huhma ◽  
Yann Lahaye ◽  
Asko Kontinen ◽  
Jarmo Kohonen ◽  
...  

2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 117-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
W J Davis ◽  
S Lacroix ◽  
C Gariépy ◽  
N Machado

Nine new U-Pb ages are reported for plutons of the central granite-gneiss zone of the Abitibi belt in Quebec. The large plutonic complex along Lithoprobe seismic reflection line 28 formed by multiple intrusion over at least 40 million years, synchronous with and postdating formation of adjacent volcanic sequences. Ages for the four principal plutons within the complex are: Mistaouac at 2726 ± 2 Ma, Boivin at 2713 ± 2 Ma, Rousseau at 2703 ± 2 Ma, and Paradis at 2686 ± 2 Ma. The latter also constrains deformation within the Laberge deformation zone to be at least in part younger than 2686 Ma. Inherited zircons in the Mistaouac pluton indicate that the oldest pluton formed in significantly older crust (>2.75 Ga), not presently exposed in the area. The La Reine and Waswanapi plutons have ages of ca. 2695 Ma similar to other tonalitic plutons in the area and elsewhere in the Abitibi belt. A syenite pluton deformed within the Douay fault zone, a late fault associated with the Casa Berardi zone, has an age of 2676+6-5 Ma, similar to alkalic plutons associated with the Destor-Porcupine and Cadillac-Larder Lake deformation zones of the southern Abitibi belt. Two samples from the Lac Case pluton yielded monazite ages of 2676 ± 3 and 2660 ± 3 Ma. Nd, Pb, and Sr isotopic compositions for central Abitibi belt plutons show dominantly juvenile sources with minor contributions of older crust in the Lac Case pluton. Although geochronological data for volcanic rocks has been used to suggest that the northern zone is older and magmatic activity youngs to the south, consideration of the ages for plutonic and volcanic rocks does not support such hypothesis. The available data indicate that magmatism occurred throughout the Abitibi subprovince from 2730 to 2685 Ma, permissive of a linked tectono-magmatic evolution for the northern and southern zones.


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