Late Precambrian ignimbrites on the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland

1969 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 1405-1414 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. S. Papezik

The predominantly volcanic Harbour Main Group of Late Precambrian age, forming a broad northerly trending belt in the central part of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, includes some well-developed ignimbrites. The ignimbrite sequence, best exposed in the western part of the volcanic belt, consists of ash-flow tuffs intercalated with tuff–breccias of various origins and minor volcanigenic sediments. Some of the ignimbrite sheets are densely welded, with distinct eutaxitic structures. Although the original glass is recrystallized, shard outlines are perfectly preserved and fragments of obsidian and perlite can be recognized; albite crystals are abundant, and quartz, augite, and biotite are present locally. The ignimbrites have been folded, faulted, and are now almost vertical. In composition, they range from rhyolites to dacites and are distinctly sodic.It is suggested that the ignimbrites may be derived from the gas-charged upper part of a granitic magma intruded into a pre-existing part of the Harbour Main volcanic pile; the lower, gas-poor part of the magma may have formed the present discordant "Holyrood batholith" of the Avalon Peninsula.

1973 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. S. Papezik

The lower member of the Signal Hill Formation of Late Precambrian age, a lithofeldspathic sandstone exposed near St. John's, Newfoundland, contains small but persistent amounts of garnet and muscovite. These minerals are not known to occur in rocks of the Harbour Main Group and the Holyrood granitic pluton of the Avalon Peninsula, previously considered to be the source of the Signal Hill sediments. As paleocurrent studies indicate a northeasterly provenance of the sediment it is suggested that the rock may have been derived from Precambrian gneissic and granitic basement, now covered by the ocean, similar to the Precambrian(?) basement rocks along the western flank of the Avalon Platform.


1971 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 899-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Hughes ◽  
W. D. Brückner

A model of island volcanism is presented in which rocks are referred to (1) a "syn-volcanic" constructional phase represented by rocks of four penecontemporaneous facies—vent, alluvial, marine, and plutonic—whose interrelationships are discussed and (2) a "post-volcanic" destructional phase of erosion and sedimentation accompanied by isostatic adjustment resulting in the spreading of an apron of volcanic sediments around a slowly rising and eroding island core.The late Precambrian rocks of the eastern part of the Avalon Peninsula, southeasternmost Newfoundland, are shown to fit this model rather closely, both petrographically and in their distribution and field relationships. The Harbour Main Group of volcanic rocks, the Conception Group of marine volcanic sediments and tuffs, and the Holyrood Plutonic Series, dated at 574 ± 11 m.y., were all formed during the syn-volcanic constructional phase. Their apparently conflicting age relationships can be reconciled to the view that they are penecontemporaneous facies. The Cabot and Hodgewater Groups of marine and alluvial volcanic sediments were formed during the post-volcanic destructional phase. Apart from vertical crustal movements, only minor diastrophic deformation appears to have occurred during these two phases.This model of volcanic island environment may help in interpreting the geology of several other belts in eastern and central Newfoundland comprising late Precambrian and Paleozoic volcanic rocks and sediments.


1976 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 512-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Hughes

Bedded rocks of cherty appearance are locally abundant and conspicuous in the late Precambrian Conception Group of the Avalon Peninsula, southeast Newfoundland. Structural, petrographical, and chemical data from a well exposed locality near St. John's indicate that these beds are tuffaceous, predominantly of acid vitric composition, formed by pyroclastic material derived from contemporaneously active subaerial volcanic sources accumulating in sea water, and subjected to submarine transport. Appreciable quantities of acid material were thus erupted in 'Conception time.'


1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 1485-1498 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. S. Papezik

The predominantly volcanic Harbour Main Group of Proterozoic (Hadrynian) age forms a northerly-trending belt in the central part of the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland. The rocks include flows, pyroclastics, and several belts of well-preserved ignimbrites.Twenty-two recent chemical analyses of volcanic rocks, sixteen of them not previously published, show that the Harbour Main volcanic suite is distinctly sodic and weakly alkalic, ranging from basic rocks of the hawaiite–mugearite type to sodic rhyolites with relatively high alkali content; the alkali-lime index of the suite is 52.The Harbour Main rocks are shown to be chemically similar to the Late Precambrian Uriconian volcanic suite in Central Britain, with which it has been previously tentatively correlated on other grounds. It is suggested that the volcanic rocks of the Avalon Peninsula and the British Midlands were formed in different parts of a possibly continuous tectonic belt in a period of post-orogenic block-faulting of the Basin and Range type, prior to the opening of the present Atlantic Ocean.


1979 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. T. Nixon ◽  
V. S. Papezik

The Colliers Peninsula, a typical area in the western part of the Harbour Main Group in eastern Newfoundland, is underlain by three steeply-dipping sequences of ash-flow tuffs 250–500 m thick, separated by clastic sediments, conformably overlain by subaerial mafic flows and cut by small bodies of high-level intrusive rocks rich in plagioclase phenocrysts. All rocks are of low metamorphic grade.The two lower pyroclastic sequences have a bulk composition of rhyolite and alkali rhyolite; they contain phenocrysts of albite, quartz, and biotite. Na/K ratios are highly variable; the albite crystals may be pseudomorphous after anorthociase. The upper sequence, rhyodacitic in bulk composition, has lower Si and higher Na; it lacks quartz and biotite phenocrysts but contains small amounts of calcic augite and altered olivine. The mafic flows (50% SiO2) show high Al and alkalies and low Ca and Ti. The porphyritic intrusives have 60–65% SiO2, but their bulk chemistry is otherwise similar to that of the ash-flow tuffs.The present composition of the rocks reflects complex chemical adjustments, both contemporaneous with and subsequent to the magmatic event. However, mineralogical and chemical data and trends considered to be a part of the original magmatic heritage are consistent with suggestions that the western (probably lower) part of the Harbour Main volcanic pile was formed in a continental, extensional tectonic environment.


1972 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1710-1726 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Anderson

Since too few absolute age determinations have been carried out on late Precambrian rocks of the Avalon Peninsula, southeastern Newfoundland, a stratigraphic approach has been adopted to obtain the necessary dates on which to base a possible time-span for the whole succession. The correlatable 'features' of the Avalon Peninsula late Precambrian—fossils, tillites, and volcanic episodes, have been correlated with similar 'features' in late Precambrian sequences in other parts of the world where these 'features' have been dated isotopically. Some of the correlations are probable, others only possible as long-distance correlation involves an element of speculation.Conception Group sedimentation may have lasted from 710 m.y. ago, the possible age of the 'basal' conglomerate, to ca 600 m.y. ago, and possible ages for the Conception Group tillites and fossils (Mistaken Point fauna) are 670–715 m.y. and 610 to 630 m.y. respectively. Harbour Main volcanism began some 795 m.y. ago and continued until about 715 m.y. before present. These ages indicate a possible age-range for the late Precambrian of the Avalon Peninsula from ca 800 m.y. to 570 m.y. (age of base of Cambrian accepted here), a time span of ca 230 m.y. that is equivalent to the greater part of the Proterozoic Hadrynian Era.The soft-bodied metazoan fossils of the Conception Group Mistaken Point fauna are comparable to those of the Australian Ediacara fauna and related forms in other parts of the world. Conception Group tillites are correlated with glaciogenic deposits of the uppermost Precambrian ice age in central Australia, the Rybachiy Peninsula, U.S.S.R., and Scotland (Dalradian tillites). Harbour Main Group volcanics are correlated with part of the Coldbrook Group volcanic sequence, southern New Brunswick; the Fourchu Group and Morrison River Formation of southeast Cape Breton Island are believed younger, and possibly, the time equivalent of the upper part of the Musgravetown Group together with the Random Formation, western Avalon, although the possibility of the Morrison River Formation being Cambrian cannot be excluded. Correlation of Harbour Main volcanics with volcanics of late Precambrian age in the British Midlands is considered a possibility but remains conjectural.A single intrusive event is favored for emplacement of the Holyrood granite 607 ± 11 m.y. ago. This necessitates there having been older granite in the area to provide a source for the granite clasts in the Conception Group conglomerates and tillites. A second, less likely, alternative is that the Holyrood granite was emplaced over a substantial period by successive pulses of magma; the 607 m.y. age is then that of the last intrusion of magma.


1972 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1568-1572 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. S. Papezik

The lowest member of the Late Precambrian Signal Hill Formation (a massive, gray, lithic sandstone), exposed at the eastern extremity of the Avalon Peninsula near St. John's, Newfoundland, is cut by a system of thin veins containing quartz, calcite, and whitish prehnite. The veins, confined to a narrow stratigraphic horizon, have been found, so far, along a strike distance of 4 km. Prehnite also forms small diffuse patches in the rock, producing a distinctive mottling effect; it is associated with authigenic quartz, sericite, chlorite, and small amounts of possibly metasomatic calcite.The prehnite-bearing mineral assemblage is consistent with mineral characteristics of the prehnite–pumpellyite facies, usually considered to be the result of burial metamorphism. The patchy interstitial prehnite is believed to have been formed by a reaction between authigenic laumontite and calcite. The prehnite-bearing assemblage may have been formed under a lithostatic load not greatly exceeding the present maximum thickness of the overlying part of the Cabot Group – about 4.5 km. The formation of both the interstitial prehnite and the prehnite-bearing veins was contemporaneous with the tectonic stresses responsible for the open folding of the Cabot Group.


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