U–Pb ages have been determined on detrital zircons from the Upper Devonian Imperial Formation and Upper Devonian – Lower Carboniferous Tuttle Formation of the northern Canadian Cordilleran miogeocline using laser ablation – multicollector – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry. The results provide insights into mid-Paleozoic sediment dispersal in, and paleogeography of, the northern Canadian Cordillera. The Imperial Formation yielded a wide range of detrital zircon dates; one sample yielded dominant peaks at 1130, 1660, and 1860 Ma, with smaller mid-Paleozoic (∼430 Ma), Neoproterozoic, and Archean populations. The easternmost Imperial Formation sample yielded predominantly late Neoproterozoic – Cambrian zircons between 500 and 700 Ma, with lesser Mesoproterozoic and older populations. The age spectra suggest that the samples were largely derived from an extensive region of northwestern Laurentia, including the Canadian Shield, igneous and sedimentary provinces of Canada’s Arctic Islands, and possibly the northern Yukon. The presence of late Neoproterozoic – Cambrian zircon, absent from the Laurentian magmatic record, indicate that a number of grains were likely derived from an exotic source region, possibly including Baltica, Siberia, or Arctic Alaska – Chukotka. In contrast, zircon grains from the Tuttle Formation show a well-defined middle Paleoproterozoic population with dominant relative probability peaks between 1850 and 1950 Ma. Additional populations in the Tuttle Formation are mid-Paleozoic (∼430 Ma), Mesoproterozoic (1000–1600 Ma), and earlier Paleoproterozoic and Archean ages (>2000 Ma). These data lend support to the hypothesis that the influx of sediments of northerly derivation that supplied the northern miogeocline in Late Devonian time underwent an abrupt shift to a source of predominantly Laurentian affinity by the Mississippian.
Decratonization by rifting enables orogenic reworking and transcurrent dispersal of old terranes in NE Brazil
