Geochemical, mineralogical, and isotopic data relating to the origin and tectonic setting of the Rossland volcanic rocks, southern British Columbia

1981 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 858-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Beddoe-Stephens ◽  
R. St J. Lambert

Bulk-rock and mineral chemical and isotopic analyses of Rossland volcanic rocks are used to infer the nature of the magma extruded in the Nelson–Rossland area of southern British Columbia during the Early Jurassic. Metamorphism of the volcanic rocks to subgreenschist and greenschist facies precludes use of mobile major and trace elements (e.g., Na, K, and Rb) as petrogenetic indicators. Data on immobile elements (Ti, Zr, and Y) and pyroxene compositions indicate that the volcanic rocks formed in a destructive-margin plate tectonic environment. Present-day 87Sr/86Sr ratios range from 0.70372 to 0.70480 but do not define an isochron. Corrected to Jurassic time, the initial ratios range from 0.70328 to 0.70404. Whole-rock δO18 values range from 7.9 to 11.6%, correlating inversely with metamorphic grade. Clinopyroxene δO18 of 4.8–6.5 is comparable with fresh clinopyroxenes from mafic rocks of mantle origin. In view of the preponderance of basaltic rather than andesitic rock types, and because of the nature of the lithologies within the volcanic rocks and associated sediments, an island-arc setting is indicated. The appearance of primary amphibole in basaltic members of the Rossland suite, and the occurrence of ankaramitic rocks, are thought to indicate a mildly alkalic rather than a subalkalic parent magma. Comparison of the Rossland volcanic rocks with those of recent island arcs, and consideration of the Upper Triassic – Lower Jurassic paleogeography in the Cordillera, suggest the rocks may be related to a localized oceanic basin, their extrusion being associated with faults bounding its western edge.

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 41-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Knudsen ◽  
Jeroen A.M. Van Gool ◽  
Claus Østergaard ◽  
Julie A. Hollis ◽  
Matilde Rink-Jørgensen ◽  
...  

A gold prospect on central Storø in the Nuuk region of southern West Greenland is hosted by a sequence of intensely deformed, amphibolite facies supracrustal rocks of late Mesoto Neoarchaean age. The prospect is at present being explored by the Greenlandic mining company NunaMinerals A/S. Amphibolites likely to be derived from basaltic volcanic rocks dominate, and ultrabasic to intermediate rocks are also interpreted to be derived from volcanic rocks. The sequence also contains metasedimentary rocks including quartzites and cordierite-, sillimanite-, garnet- and biotite-bearing aluminous gneisses. The metasediments contain detrital zircon from different sources indicating a maximum age of the mineralisation of c. 2.8 Ga. The original deposition of the various rock types is believed to have taken place in a back-arc setting. Gold is mainly hosted in garnet- and biotite-rich zones in amphibolites often associated with quartz veins. Gold has been found within garnets indicating that the mineralisation is pre-metamorphic, which points to a minimum age of the mineralisation of c. 2.6 Ga. The geochemistry of the goldbearing zones indicates that the initial gold mineralisation is tied to fluid-induced sericitisation of a basic volcanic protolith. The hosting rocks and the mineralisation are affected by several generations of folding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 1195-1228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca A Morris ◽  
Susan M DeBari ◽  
Cathy Busby ◽  
Sarah Medynski ◽  
Brian R Jicha

Abstract The ∼50 km long Rosario segment of the Cretaceous Alisitos oceanic arc terrane provides undeformed three-dimensional exposures of the upper 7 km of an oceanic extensional arc, where crustal generation processes are recorded in both the volcanic and underlying plutonic rocks. These exceptional exposures allow for the study of the physical and chemical links between the rock units and help constrain the differentiation processes active during the growth and evolution of arc crust. This study focuses on the southern third of the Rosario segment, previously referred to as the southern volcano-bounded basin, and its plutonic underpinnings. Upper crustal rocks in the Rosario segment consist of a 3–5 km thick volcanic–volcaniclastic section with hypabyssal intrusions. Plutons intrude these units at various levels along-strike, but at each intrusive contact the transition is complete over a distance of <150 m, where stoped volcanic blocks are present. There is striking compositional overlap in whole-rock and mineral chemistry between the plutonic and volcanic units, suggesting a comagmatic source. Whole-rock geochemistry shows coherent trends in major and trace elements in mafic to intermediate compositions, but less coherent trends above 63 wt % SiO2. Units are predominantly low-K with flat rare earth element patterns, and show large ion lithophile element enrichment and high field strength element depletion. Initial Nd and Pb isotope ratios overlap for all units and imply no cratonic continental involvement. This agrees with low Sr/Y ratios of all rock types, indicative of thin, immature oceanic arc crust. Modeling results show that closed-system fractional crystallization drove crustal differentiation from mafic to intermediate compositions, but open-system processes likely occurred to produce some of the felsic compositions. Differentiation occurred in a two-step fractionation process. Step 1, from basaltic andesite to andesite, fractionated an anhydrous gabbroic cumulate (∼40% crystallization). Step 2, from andesite to rhyolite, fractionated a hydrous amphibole cumulate (∼65% crystallization, total), which is similar to what fluid dynamical models suggest for production of rhyolite (between 50–70% crystallization). Our results can be used as a reference model for differentiation processes relating to the growth of the middle and upper crust within active extensional arc systems. The Rosario segment plutonic rocks may be analogous to the low-velocity zone (Vp = 6·0–6·5 km s–1) imaged within the extensional Izu–Bonin arc. The chemistry of the plutonic and volcanic rocks is most similar to those of volcanic rocks in the Izu–Bonin active rift.


1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 1769-1779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra M. Barr ◽  
Rebecca A. Jamieson

Interlayered mafic and felsic metavolcanic rocks and metasedimentary rocks of Ordovician to Silurian age are characteristic of the Aspy terrane of northwestern Cape Breton Island. These rocks were affected by medium- to high-grade metamorphism and were intruded by synkinematic granitoid orthogneisses during Late Silurian to Early Devonian times. They were intruded by posttectonic Devonian granitic plutons and experienced rapid Devonian decompression and cooling. The chemical characteristics of the mafic metavolcanic rocks indicate that they are tholeiites formed in a volcanic-arc setting. The volcanic rocks of the Aspy terrane differ from many other Silurian and Silurian–Devonian successions in Atlantic Canada, which have chemical and stratigraphic characteristics of volcanic rocks formed in extensional within-plate settings, and are somewhat younger than the Aspy terrane sequences. Aspy terrane units are most similar to Ordovician–Silurian volcanic and metamorphic units in southwestern Newfoundland, including the La Poile Group and the Port aux Basques gneiss. Together with other occurrences of Late Ordovician to Early Silurian volcanic-arc units, they indicate that subduction-related compressional tectonics continued into the Silurian in parts of the northern Appalachian Orogen. The complex Late Silurian – Devonian tectonic history of the Aspy terrane may reflect collision with the southeastern edge of a Grenvillian crustal promentory.


1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (12) ◽  
pp. 2159-2166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hulusi Kargi ◽  
Calvin G. Barnes

The Nellie intrusion is a thick (more than 4420 m) mafic to ultramafic layered intrusion with a radiometric age of ~1163 Ma. Rock types change abruptly with stratigraphic height and include norite, pyroxenite, gabbronorite, hornblende gabbro, gabbro, anorthosite, harzburgite, and lherzolite. Norite is most abundant, but gabbro and hornblende gabbro are locally abundant. Rare olivine-rich layers are also present. The general order of crystallization was olivine, orthopyroxene, plagioclase + clinopyroxene, and hornblende. Mg#'s, expressed as 100 Mg/(Mg + Fe), range from 76.3 to 85.8 for olivine, 56.7 to 84.9 for orthopyroxene, 62.5 to 90.3 for clinopyroxene, and 52.4 to 82.8 for amphibole. Mg#'s vary with height and display abrupt reversals, which indicate open-system addition of new mafic magma. Eleven cyclic units were identified on the basis of evidence for injection of basaltic magma; these can be grouped into three megacyclic units. The abundance of orthopyroxene, and mineral compositional evidence for Fe enrichment within cyclic units, indicates that parental magmas were subalkaline and tholeiitic. Plagioclase in equilibrium with olivine ranges from An65 to An46, which precludes an arc-related magma source. Although the intrusion is approximately coeval with Keweenawan magmatism and with emplacement of diabasic dikes in western North America, it is dissimilar in detail to both suites of rocks. Nevertheless, its composition and geophysical setting are consistent with emplacement in an extensional tectonic environment.


1981 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 1478-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Ewing

The Kamloops Group is an alkali-rich calc-alkaline volcanic suite of Early to Middle Eocene age, widespread in south-central British Columbia. Rock types in the suite range from high-K basalt through andesite to rhyolite. The suite is characterized by relatively high K2O, Sr, and Ba, but low Zr, Ti, and Ni concentrations, only moderate Ce enrichment, and little or no Fe enrichment. Initial ratios 87Sr/86Sr are about 0.7040 in the western half, and about 0.7060 in the eastern half of the study area. No difference in chemistry or mineralogy marks this sharp transition. Chemically similar suites include the Absaroka–Gallatin suite in Wyoming and the lower San Juan (Summer Coon) suite in Colorado. The content of K2O at 60% SiO2 increases regularly eastward across southern British Columbia. The chemical data support the subduction-related continental arc origin of the Kamloops Group volcanics.The volcanic rocks consist in the main of augite–pigeonite andesites ranging from 52 to 62% silica, with subordinate quantities of olivine–augite–pigeonite basalt and biotite rhyodacite and rhyolite. The andesites and basalts were derived by a combination of low-pressure fractional crystallization, higher pressure fractional crystallization, and variable parental magmas, whereas low-pressure fractional crystallization of plagioclase, biotite, and apatite from parental basalt and andesite produced the rhyolites. The parental magmas were basalts and basaltic andesites with high K, Sr, and Ba. The primary source of these magmas is inferred to have been an alkali-enriched hydrous peridotite with neither plagioclase nor garnet present in the residuum.


2003 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 907-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée-Luce Simard ◽  
Jaroslav Dostal ◽  
Charlie F Roots

The late Paleozoic volcanic rocks of the northern Canadian Cordillera lying between Ancestral North America to the east and the accreted terranes of the Omineca belt to the west record early arc and rift magmatism along the paleo-Pacific margin of the North American craton. The Mississippian to Permian volcano-sedimentary Klinkit Group extends discontinuously over 250 km in northern British Columbia and southern Yukon. The two stratotype areas are as follows: (1) in the Englishman Range, southern Yukon, the English Creek Limestone is conformably overlain by the volcano-sedimentary Mount McCleary Formation (Lower Clastic Member, Alkali-Basalt Member and Volcaniclastic Member), and (2) in the Stikine Ranges, northern British Columbia, the Screw Creek Limestone is conformably overlain by the volcano-sedimentary Butsih Formation (Volcaniclastic Member and Upper Clastic Member). The calc-alkali nature of the basaltic volcaniclastic members of the Klinkit Group indicates a volcanic-arc setting ((La/Yb)N = 2.77–4.73), with little involvement of the crust in their genesis (εNd = +6.7 to +7.4). Alkali basalts in the Mount McCleary Formation ((La/Yb)N = 12.5–17.8) suggest periodic intra-arc rifting events. Broadly coeval and compositionally similar volcano-sedimentary assemblages occur in the basement of the Mesozoic Quesnel arc, north-central British Columbia, and in the pericratonic Yukon–Tanana composite terrane, central Yukon, suggesting that they all represent pieces of a single long-lived, late Paleozoic arc system that was dismembered prior to its accretion onto Ancestral North America. Therefore, Yukon–Tanana terrane is possibly the equivalent to the basement of Quesnel terrane, and the northern Quesnel terrane has a pericratonic affinity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toe Naing Oo ◽  
Agung Harijoko ◽  
Lucas Donny Setijadji

The Kyaukmyet prospect lies approximately 5 km ENE of the highsulfidation Kyisintaung copper-gold deposit, Monywa district, central Myanmar. Geologically, the research area is remarked by magmatic extrusion that occurred during the Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene of Magyigon Formation which led to the outcrops of volcanic rocks. Study detailed on petrographical and geochemical of the Kyaukmyet volcanic rocks has not been performed before the present work. The principal aim of this paper is to document the petrographical and geochemical characteristics of volcanic suite rocks exposed in the Kyaukmyet prospect. The results of this data have provided insight into the origin of the rocks and petrogenetic processes during evolution. Petrographically, all the studied volcanic rocks in the research area show that trachytic and porphyritic textures with phenocrysts of quartz, plagioclase, and K-feldspar which are embedded in a fine to medium grained groundmass. The accessory minerals of this rock consist of biotite, chlorite and opaque mineral.Geochemically, these volcanic rocks having calc-alkaline nature and classified as volcanic field (rhyolite) as well as volcanic arc setting. Based on the chondrite normalized spider diagram, LREE has enriched to HREE in this area which indicated negative Eu anomaly and subduction tectonic setting.


2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1000-1020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Hayward ◽  
Andrew J. Calvert

The structure and stratigraphy of the southeast Nechako Basin, which are poorly understood primarily because of substantial volcanic cover, are investigated in an analysis of seismic reflection, well, and potential field data. Formation and development of the SE Nechako Basin resulted in sub-basins containing Cretaceous and Eocene rocks. Interpretation reveals that dextral transtension in the Early to Middle Eocene created NNW-trending, en echelon, strike-slip faults linked by pull-apart basins, which locally contain a thickness of Eocene volcaniclastic rocks of >3 km. This structural pattern is consistent with regional observations that suggest the transfer of slip from the Yalakom fault to the north via a series of en echelon strike-slip faults. In the Middle to Late Eocene, faults associated with a change in the direction of stress, echoed by the north-trending right-lateral Fraser fault, reactivated and cut earlier structures. A simple model agrees with local observations, that northeast-directed compression was subparallel to the relic Cretaceous grain. Cretaceous rocks are discontinuous throughout the basin and may be remnants of a broader basin, or a number of contemporaneous basins, formed in a regional transpressional tectonic setting that caused northeast-directed thrusting along the eastern side of the Coast Plutonic Complex. Results suggest that thrusting affected most of the SE Nechako Basin, as observed across the Intermontane Belt to the northwest and southeast. The pattern of deposition of Neogene volcanic rocks of the Chilcotin Group was in part controlled by the Eocene structural grain, but we find no evidence of Neogene deformation.


1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (11) ◽  
pp. 1456-1461 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Friedman ◽  
J. W. H. Monger ◽  
H. W. Tipper

A new U–Pb date of [Formula: see text] for foliated felsic metavolcanic rocks of the Bowen Island Group, from Mount Elphinstone in the southwesternmost Coast Mountains of British Columbia, indicates that there the age of this hitherto undated unit is early Middle Jurassic. These rocks grade along strike to the north-northwest into a more sedimentary facies, which north of Jervis Inlet contains a probable Sinemurian (Lower Jurassic) ammonite. The Bowen Island Group thus appears to include Lower and Middle Jurassic rocks and to be coeval in part with volcanic rocks of the Bonanza Formation on Vancouver Island to the west and the Harrison Lake Formation within the central Coast Mountains 75 km to the east.


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