scholarly journals The search for surficial expressions of buried Cordilleran porphyry deposits; background and progress in a new Targeted Geoscience Initiative 4 activity in the southern Canadian Cordillera, British Columbia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
R G Anderson ◽  
A Plouffe ◽  
T Ferbey ◽  
C E Dunn
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Porphyry Deposits

Status of the Jurassic in the Canadian Cordillera of British Columbia, Alberta, and southern Yukon

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Frebold ◽  
H. W. Tipper
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Tectonic Events ◽  
Source Of Information

Jurassic index fossils of the Canadian Cordillera indicate the presence of some zones of most Jurassic stages. In this report the more important localities are listed, the source of information, published and unpublished, is indicated, and an up-dated correlation chart is presented. The importance of tectonic events and their effect on the completeness of the Jurassic fossil record and on the Jurassic paleogeography are stressed.

Review: Receiver function studies in the southern Canadian Cordillera

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (10) ◽  
pp. 1514-1519 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Cassidy
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Upper Mantle ◽  
Receiver Function ◽  
Vancouver Island ◽  
Moho Depth ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Low Velocity ◽  
Strait Of Georgia ◽  
Low Velocity Zone ◽  
Velocity Zone

Receiver function analysis has proven to be a powerful, yet inexpensive tool for estimating the S-wave velocity structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath three-component seismograph stations in the southern Canadian Cordillera. Receiver function studies using a portable broadband seismograph array across southwestern British Columbia provided site-specific estimates for the location of the subducting Juan de Fuca plate. The oceanic crust was imaged at 47−53 km beneath central Vancouver Island, and 60–65 km beneath the Strait of Georgia. Further, these studies revealed a prominent low-velocity zone (VS = −1.0 km/s) that coincides with the E reflectors imaged ~5–10 km above the subducting plate on Lithoprobe reflection lines. The E low-velocity zone was shown to extend into the upper mantle beneath the Strait of Georgia and the British Columbia mainland, to depths of 50–60 km. Combining the receiver function and refraction models revealed a high Poisson's ratio (0.27–0.38) for this feature. The continental Moho was estimated at 36 km beneath the Strait of Georgia, and a crustal low-velocity zone associated with the Lithoprobe C reflectors beneath Vancouver Island was interpreted to extend eastward, near the base of the continental crust, to the British Columbia mainland. Analysis of data from the recently deployed Canadian National Seismograph Network demonstrates the variations in crustal thickness and complexity across the southern Canadian Cordillera, with the Moho depth varying from 35 km in the Coast Mountains, to 33 km near Penticton, to 50 km near the Rocky Mountain deformation front.

A Review of Geophysical Studies in the Canadian Cordillera

1971 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 788-801 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Berry ◽  
W. R. Jacoby ◽  
E. R. Niblett ◽  
R. A. Stacey
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Heat Flow ◽  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vancouver Island ◽  
Geophysical Data ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Crust And Upper Mantle ◽  
Juan De Fuca

Geophysical studies of the crust and upper mantle have been conducted in the Canadian Cordillera for over two decades, but only recently have sufficient data been collected to permit a synthesis and a correlation with the major geological units. The studies have included gravity, heat flow, and magnetotelluric observations, geomagnetic depth sounding, and high level aeromagnetics as well as both small and large scale refraction and reflection seismic surveys.It now appears that major crustal units may be recognized geophysically:(i) Seismic and gravity data suggest that the Plains and Rocky Mountains are underlain by two units of the North American craton with a crustal section 45–50 km thick. The northern unit appears to terminate at the Rocky Mountain Trench while the southern unit may extend to the Omineca Geanticline.(ii) The combined geological and geophysical data suggest that the Rocky Mountain Trench and possibly the Kootenay Arc near the 49th parallel mark the edge of the Precambrian continental margin and that the western Cordillera was formed by a complex succession of plate interactions with repeated reactivation of block boundaries.(iii) A combination of magnetic and heat flow data suggest that the region between the Rocky Mountain Trench and the Fraser Lineament is part of the Cordilleran Thermal Anomaly Zone recognized by Blackwell in the United States.(iv) Seismic data in Central British Columbia suggest that the Pinchi Fault system is a boundary between two crustal blocks.(v) The crustal thickness of the Coast Geanticline appears to increase gradually to the west to approximately 40 km and, at least in southern British Columbia, does not have a root zone below the mountains.(vi) The crustal section beneath Vancouver Island is abnormally thick and there is some paleomagnetic data which suggest that the Island may not have been formed in its present position, contiguous to the Cordillera. The crustal section for the northern part of the Insular Trough is significantly thinner.(vii) The active spreading of the Juan de Fuca Rise – Explorer Trench is now well documented. The geophysical data suggest active subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath Oregon, Washing-ton, and southern Vancouver Island. However, further north there is no evidence for subduction.

Paleomagnetic and geobarometric study of the mid-Cretaceous Whitehorse Pluton, Yukon Territory

1997 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 1379-1391 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Harris ◽  
D. T. A. Symons ◽  
W. H. Blackburn ◽  
C. J. R. Hart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
British Columbia ◽  
Crystallization Temperature ◽  
Remanent Magnetization ◽  
Average Rate ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
The North ◽  
North American Craton ◽  
High Level

This is the first of several Lithoprobe paleomagnetic studies underway to examine geotectonic motions in the northern Canadian Cordillera. Except for one controversial study, estimates for terranes underlying the Intermontane Belt in the Yukon have been extrapolated from studies in Alaska, southern British Columbia, and the northwestern United States. The Whitehorse Pluton is a large unmetamorphosed and undeformed tonalitic body of mid-Cretaceous age (~112 Ma) that was intruded into sedimentary units of the Whitehorse Trough in the Stikinia terrane. Geothermobarometric estimates for eight sites around the pluton indicate that postmagnetization tilting has been negligible since cooling through the hornblende-crystallization temperature and that the pluton is a high-level intrusion. Paleomagnetic measurements for 22 of 24 sites in the pluton yield a well-defined characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) direction that is steeply down and northwards. The ChRM direction gives a paleopole of 285.5°E, 81.7°N (dp = 53°, dm = 5.7°). When compared with the 112 Ma reference pole for the North American craton, this paleopole suggests that the northern Stikinia terrane has been translated northwards by 11.0 ± 4.8° (1220 ± 530 km) and rotated clockwise by 59 ± 17°. Except for an estimate from the ~70 Ma Carmacks Group volcanics, this translation and rotation estimate agrees well with previous estimates for units in the central and southern Intermontane Belt. They suggest that the terranes of the Intermontane Belt have behaved as a fairly coherent unit since the Early Cretaceous, moving northward at a minimum average rate of 2.3 ± 0.4 cm/a between ~140 and ~45 Ma.

Development of late Paleozoic volcanic arcs in the Canadian Cordillera: an example from the Klinkit Group, northern British Columbia and southern Yukon

2003 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 907-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée-Luce Simard ◽  
Jaroslav Dostal ◽  
Charlie F Roots
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
North America ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Late Paleozoic ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Alkali Basalts ◽  
The North ◽  
Pacific Margin ◽  
North American Craton ◽  
Arc Setting

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.

New Nassellaria (Radiolaria) from the Lower Jurassic of the Canadian Cordillera

1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Cordey ◽  
Elizabeth S. Carter
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
New Species ◽  
New Taxa ◽  
Lower Jurassic ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
New Genera ◽  
Queen Charlotte Islands ◽  
Carbonate Concretions ◽  
Bridge Group ◽  
Three New Species

New nassellarian radiolarians are described from the Insular and Intermontane belts of the Canadian Cordillera in British Columbia. Two new genera (Atalanta n.gen. and Nitrader n.gen.) and three new species (Atalanta emmela n.gen., n.sp., Atalanta epaphrodita n.gen., n.sp., and Nitrader montegufonensis n.gen., n.sp.) were found in Lower Jurassic carbonate concretions of the Sandilands Formation of the Queen Charlotte Islands and in a chert pebble extracted from a Cretaceous conglomerate of the Intermontane Belt possibly correlative with the Spences Bridge Group. The discovery of new taxa within two distinct belts of the Canadian Cordillera stresses their biostratigraphic significance.

Magnetism and age of the Porteau Pluton, southern Coast Belt, British Columbia: evidence for tilt and translation

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Irving ◽  
J. Baker ◽  
N. Wright ◽  
C. J. Yorath ◽  
R. J. Enkin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
North America ◽  
Coercive Force ◽  
The Body ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Zircon Age ◽  
Minimum Estimate

The Porteau Pluton is a variably foliated quartz diorite to granodiorite intrusion in the southern Coast Belt of the Canadian Cordillera (49.6°N, 123.2°W). 40Ar/39Ar ages are 95 ± 5 Ma from biotite and 101.5 ± 0.7 Ma from hornblende, which, together with an earlier U–Pb zircon age of 100 ± 2 Ma, indicate that the body was emplaced, uplifted, and cooled rapidly in mid-Cretaceous time. The rocks contain high coercive force (hard) remanent magnetizations with unblocking temperatures between 500 and 600 °C, close to those of Ar in hornblende, indicating that remanence was acquired at or close to the hornblende plateau age. The hard remanence directions have an elongate distribution, in agreement with the predictions of M.E. Beck regarding magnetization acquired during tilting, uplift, and cooling of plutons. No part of the distribution agrees with the direction expected from observations from rocks of mid-Cretaceous age from cratonic North America. The elongate distribution defines the axis of tilt (347° east of north) but not its direction; tilt could have been down toward the east or down toward the west. The former yields an inclination that is 29.0 ± 4.9° shallower than expected from cratonic observations, corresponding to a displacement from the south of 3200 ± 500 km. The latter reconstruction yields an inclination that is anomalously shallow by 14.8 ± 3.9°, corresponding to a displacement from the south of 1600 ± 400 km, which is a minimum estimate. It is argued, therefore, that the Porteau Pluton has undergone both tilt and displacement from the south by distances substantially in excess of 1000 km.

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