Paleomagnetism of late Paleozoic rocks in the northern Cache Creek terrane near Atlin, British Columbia

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 486-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Cole ◽  
R. F. Butler ◽  
G. E. Gehrels
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Remanent Magnetization ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Relative Age ◽  
Thermal Demagnetization ◽  
Northern Portion ◽  
Paleozoic Rocks ◽  
Tectonic Interpretation

The Cache Creek terrane is exposed along the length of the Canadian Cordillera and is composed of oceanic strata that are probably, at least in part, exotic to North America. In the northern portion of the Cache Creek terrane near Atlin, British Columbia, paleomagnetic samples were collected from layered Paleozoic rocks at 22 sites (≥ 6 samples/site) on Alfred Butte. Principal component analysis of detailed thermal demagnetization data allowed clear isolation of a characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) from 17 of these sites. Blocking temperatures to 680 °C indicate that this magnetization is carried by hematite, and site-mean ChRM directions are determined with α95 < 10° for the majority of sites. On Sentinel Mountain, samples were collected from 16 sites in layered Paleozoic volcanic and chert rocks and from a diabase sill. Thermal demagnetization revealed a ChRM in the chert and volcanic rocks with blocking temperatures to 680 °C, whereas alternating-field demagnetization to 40 mT successfully isolated ChRM in the diabase sill. ChRM directions from four sites involved in a mesoscopic S-fold at Alfred Butte fail the fold test, indicating that the ChRM is a postfolding secondary remagnetization. Tests for relative age of structural tilting and remagnetization are ambiguous, with attendant uncertainties in tectonic interpretations. However, rock-magnetic and geologic constraints argue for a chemical remagnetization of these Paleozoic rocks in Late Triassic to Middle Jurassic time, possibly associated with structural juxtaposition of the Cache Creek and Stikine terranes along the Nahlin fault zone. Although certainly nonunique and speculative, the simplest tectonic interpretation of these paleomagnetic data involves postfolding and posttilting remagnetization during the Early Jurassic in a paleolatitudinal position that approximately agrees with predicted North American paleolatitudes for this time.

Cretaceous remagnetization in the Sylvester Allochthon: limits to post-105 Ma northward displacement of north-central British Columbia

1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 1316-1322 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. F. Butler ◽  
T. A. Harms ◽  
H. Gabrielse
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Confidence Level ◽  
Remanent Magnetization ◽  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
Natural Remanent Magnetization ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Geological Evidence ◽  
North Central ◽  
Thermal Demagnetization ◽  
Pole Location

The Sylvester Allochthon of the Slide Mountain Terrane in northern British Columbia is a structurally interleaved assemblage of ocean-floor lithologies ranging in age from Late Devonian to Late Triassic. It is the most inboard of oceanic suspect terranes and rests as a vast klippe on miogeoclinal strata of the Cassiar Terrane. The Sylvester Allochton and the Cassiar Terrane lie west of the Northern Rocky Mountain Trench Fault. Both the Sylvester Allochthon and the Cassiar Terrane are intruded by mid-Cretaceous (105 Ma) granite of the Cassiar Batholith. Six oriented cores were collected at each of 12 sites in Guadalupian Parafusulina-bearing limestone of the Sylvester Allochthon at a location 4 km from the batholith. Isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) acquisition and subsequent thermal demagnetization indicate that pyrrhotite is the dominant ferrimagnetic mineral. Least-squares line fitting to four thermal demagnetization steps between 150 and 310 °C was used to determine the characteristic natural remanent magnetization (NRM) directions that fail the fold test at the 99.5% confidence level. We interpret these observations as indicating that the NRM is a thermoremanent or thermochemical remanent magnetism associated with intrusion of the Cassiar Batholith. The resulting paleomagnetic pole location is latitude = 75.7°N, longitude = 171.7°E, α95 = 8.5°. When compared with the mid-Cretaceous pole for cratonic North America, a small but significant clockwise rotation (R ± ΔR = 23.9 ± 18.1 °) is evident, but poleward translation (p ± Δp = 5.3 ± 9.2°) is not significant at the 95% confidence level. The paleomagnetic results are consistent with geological evidence for moderate (700 km) northward transport of the Cassiar Terrane (along with the previously emplaced overlying Sylvester Allochthon) during mid-Cretaceous to Tertiary dextral transcurrent faulting.

U–Pb zircon geochronology from the Alexander terrane, southeast Alaska: implications for the Greens Creek massive sulphide deposit

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (12) ◽  
pp. 1458-1475
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Sack ◽  
Ron F. Berry ◽  
J. Bruce Gemmell ◽  
Sebastien Meffre ◽  
Andrew West
Keyword(s):  
Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
White Mica ◽  
Massive Sulphide ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Massive Sulphide Deposit ◽  
Sulphide Deposit ◽  
Southeast Alaska ◽  
Northern Portion ◽  
Greens Creek Mine

This paper presents results of a laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – quadrapole mass spectrometer (LA–ICP–QMS) U–Pb dating study of small in situ zircon grains from samples collected in the vicinity of the Greens Creek massive sulphide deposit, on northern Admiralty Island, southeast Alaska. The Greens Creek mine is a volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit in the central portion of the Alexander Triassic metallogenic belt (ATMB) and is one of the top global silver producers despite having a dominantly mafic metavolcanic stratigraphic footwall. The stratigraphic footwall is a Mississippian mafic metavolcanic sequence with a protolith age of approximately 340–330 Ma. The first U–Pb zircon constrained chronostratigraphy for the area places the deposit near, or at, the base of the host Late Triassic stratigraphy just above an approximately 100 million year old unconformity and probably 10–15 million years older than mineralization at the Palmer and Windy Craggy deposits in the northern portion of the ATMB. The stratigraphic location of the Greens Creek deposit is atypical for a syngenetic massive sulphide deposit, and this may, at least partly, explain its unusual metal endowment. Pre-mineralization Permian U–Pb zircon metamorphic ages are consistent with published 273–260 Ma white mica ages related to the collision of the Admiralty and Craig subterranes, the basement to the ATMB. The much older age of the footwall rocks and their Permian pre-mineralization metamorphism demonstrates that though the mafic volcanic rocks are not genetically linked to the deposit, they likely influenced the style of alteration and mineralization.

Regional implications of Upper Triassic metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks on the Chilkat Peninsula, southeastern Alaska

1980 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 681-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Plafker ◽  
Travis Hudson
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Upper Triassic ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Low Grade ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Metasedimentary Rocks

A low-grade metamorphic sequence consisting of thick mafic volcanic rocks overlain by calcareous flysch with very minor limestone underlies much of the Chilkat Peninsula. Fossils collected from both units are of Triassic age, probably late Karnian. This sequence appears to be part of the Taku terrane, a linear tectono-stratigraphic belt that now can be traced for almost 700 km through southeastern Alaska to the Kelsall Lake area of British Columbia. The age and gross lithology of the Chilkat Peninsula sequence are comparable to Upper Triassic rocks that characterize the allochthonous tectono-stratigraphic terrane named Wrangellia. This suggests either that the two terranes are related in their history or that they are allochthonous with respect to one another and coincidentally evolved somewhat similar sequences in Late Triassic time.

Geological and geochemical evidence for variable magmatism and tectonics in the southern Canadian Cordillera: Paleozoic to Jurassic suites, Greenwood, southern British Columbia

2001 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Dostal ◽  
B N Church ◽  
T Hoy
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Middle Triassic ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Island Arc ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
South Central ◽  
Upper Paleozoic ◽  
Paleozoic Rocks

The Paleozoic and early Mesozoic rocks of the Greenwood mining camp in southern British Columbia are a part of the Quesnel terrane in the eastern part of the Intermontane Belt of the Canadian Cordillera. Upper Paleozoic rocks include the Knob Hill Group composed of oceanic tholeiitic basalts (with (La/Yb)n [Formula: see text] 0.4–1.2), associated with deep ocean sedimentary rocks and serpentinites; the Attwood Group that comprises island-arc tholeiites (with (La/Yb)n [Formula: see text] 1–4 and positive εNd values), clastic sedimentary rocks and limestones; and a unit of oceanic gabbros with (La/Yb)n < 0.5. These lithologically defined units occur as tectonically emplaced slivers of oceanic crust probably produced during the closure of the Slide Mountain basin during the Permian. They are unconformably overlain by Middle Triassic calc-alkaline volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Brooklyn Group. The Brooklyn Group volcanic rocks have characteristics of mature island-arc rocks, including (La/Yb)n [Formula: see text] 2.5–4.5 and positive εNd values. The Paleozoic rocks are crosscut by a 200 million years old granodioritic intrusion containing zircon with an Early Proterozoic inheritance age (~2.4 Ga). By inference, southern Quesnellia may have been well offshore from the ancestral North American margin in the Mississippian, in close proximity to the margin by the Middle Triassic, and contiguous with it by the Early Jurassic. It is suggested that the complex tectonic history of extension and contraction of the southern Canadian Cordillera during the post Middle Jurassic can be extended in south-central British Columbia as far back as the upper Paleozoic.

Evolution of the Hazelton arc near Terrace, British Columbia: stratigraphic, geochronological, and geochemical constraints on a Late Triassic – Early Jurassic arc and Cu–Au porphyry belt

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (7) ◽  
pp. 466-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Barresi ◽  
J.L. Nelson ◽  
J. Dostal ◽  
R. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Massive Sulfide ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Spinel Lherzolite ◽  
Island Arcs ◽  
Volcanic Stratigraphy ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
North American Craton

Understanding the development of island arcs that accreted to the North American craton is critical to deciphering the complex geological history of the Canadian Cordillera. In the case of the Hazelton arc (part of the Stikine terrane, or Stikinia) in northwestern British Columbia, understanding arc evolution also bears on the formation of spatially associated porphyry Cu–Au, epithermal, and volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. The Hazelton Group is a regionally extensive, long-lived, and exceptionally thick Upper Triassic to Middle Jurassic volcano-sedimentary succession considered to record a successor arc that was built upon the Paleozoic and Triassic Stikine and Stuhini arcs. In central Stikinia, near Terrace, British Columbia, the lower Hazelton Group (Telkwa Formation) comprises three volcanic-intrusive complexes (Mt. Henderson, Mt. O’Brien, and Kitselas) that, at their thickest, constitute almost 16 km of volcanic stratigraphy. Basal Telkwa Formation conglomerates and volcanic rocks were deposited unconformably on Triassic and Paleozoic arc-related basement. New U–Pb zircon ages indicate that volcanism initiated by ca. 204 Ma (latest Triassic). Detrital zircon populations from the basal conglomerate contain abundant 205–233 Ma zircons, derived from regional unroofing of older Triassic intrusions. Eleven kilometres higher in the section, ca. 194 Ma, rhyolites show that arc construction continued for >10 million years. Strata of the Nilkitkwa Formation (upper Hazelton Group) with a U–Pb zircon age of 178.90 ± 0.28 Ma represent waning island-arc volcanism. Telkwa Formation volcanic rocks have bimodal silica concentrations ranging from 48.1 to 62.8 wt.% and 72.3 to 79.0 wt.% and display characteristics of subduction-related magmatism (i.e., calc-alkaline differentiation with low Nb and Ti and high Th concentrations). Mafic to intermediate rocks form a differentiated suite that ranges from high-Al basalt to medium- to high-K andesite. They were derived from hydrous melting of isotopically juvenile spinel lherzolite in the mantle wedge and from subsequent fractional crystallization. Compared to basalts and andesites (εNd = +5 to +5.5), rhyolites have higher positive εNd values (+5.9 to +6.0) and overlapping incompatible element concentrations, indicating that they are not part of the same differentiation suite. Rather, the rhyolites formed from anatexis of arc crust, probably caused by magmatic underplating of the crust. This study documents a temporal and spatial co-occurrence of Hazelton Group volcanic rocks with a belt of economic Cu–Au porphyry deposits (ca. 205–195 Ma) throughout northwestern Stikinia. The coeval relationship is attributed to crustal underplating and intra-arc extension associated with slab rollback during renewed or reconfigured subduction beneath Stikinia, following the demise of the Stuhini arc in the Late Norian.

Geology and geochemistry of the volcanic rocks of the Pioneer Formation, Bridge River area, southwestern British Columbia (Canada)

1994 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Dostal ◽  
B. N. Church
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Accretionary Prism ◽  
Oceanic Lithosphere ◽  
Source Rocks ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Stability Field ◽  
The North ◽  
Mantle Diapir ◽  
North American Craton

AbstractThe Pioneer Formation of southwestern British Columbia (Canada) is composed predominantly of middle to late Triassic pillow basalts. These rocks are an integral part of the Cadwallader and the Bridge River terranes that were delaminated from the oceanic lithosphere and stacked against the continental margin of the North American craton by middle Jurassic time. The basalts are underlain and locally intercalated with ribbon cherts and argillites that range in age from Mississippian to Triassic. The Triassic basalts are conformably overlain by clastic sediments containing late Carnian–Norian conodont fauna. The tholeiitic basalts have enriched and depleted REE patterns, and have been emplaced in an oceanic environment. The compositional variations of the basalts are attributed to dynamic partial melting of source rocks that are believed to have been part of the rising mantle diapir. According to our model, after initial melting in the garnet stability field, the mantle diapir rose up to the spinel stability field where it underwent subsequent melting. The reconstructed stratigraphy of the Bridge River area may be interpreted in terms of an oceanic plate moving over a mantle plume and into a trench where offscraping preserved tectonic lenses of the subducting plate in an accretionary prism.

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