Tertiary extension and tilting in the Queen Charlotte Islands, evidence from dyke swarms and their paleomagnetism

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1878-1898 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Irving ◽  
J. G. Souther ◽  
J. Baker
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
North American Plate ◽  
Western Margin ◽  
Queen Charlotte Islands ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Magnetic Stability ◽  
Transform Margin ◽  
Dyke Swarms

The Queen Charlotte Islands form the western margin of the Tertiary Queen Charlotte Basin, which is situated on the western margin of the North American Plate. They contain seven major dyke swarms of Late Eocene to Miocene age, a period when the relative motions of the Pacific and the North American plates in this region were dominantly dextral strike slip (transform margin), with intervals of highly oblique divergence and convergence. Within each swarm, dykes have a systematic trend. However, trends vary from swarm to swarm, indicating that the stress field varied. A total of 678 cores (1352 specimens) were collected from 129 dykes in six swarms over a distance of about 200 km. Magnetic stability is variable. One hundred and one dykes yielded records of the paleofield. Data are also reported from an Oligocene pluton (5 sites, 27 cores, 52 specimens) and Miocene lavas (8 sites, 52 cores, 101 specimens). Both normal and reversed magnetizations occur, but irrespective of sign, the mean directions of remanent magnetization of each swarm and of the pluton and the lavas have systematically steeper inclinations than the value calculated from coeval rocks in North America. To explain this it is proposed that, after dyke emplacement, the sampling areas were tilted to the north or northwest by amounts that vary between 9 and 16°. Apparently, crustal tilting, similar in magnitude and direction, extended over distances of approximately 200 km. This cannot reflect tilting of a single block. Instead, it is argued that at least the southern Queen Charlotte Islands underwent considerable northerly or north-northwesterly directed extension and normal block faulting, which followed and in part was concurrent with the formation of widespread mid-Tertiary dyke swarms, plutons and lava flows. Making use of the fact that dykes propagate perpendicular to the direction of extension, and combining previously measured dyke orientations with paleomagnetic data, three stages of extension are proposed: east–west extension sometime during the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene; north–south extension sometime in the interval Late Oligocene to Early Miocene; and northwest–southeast extension sometime during Late Miocene or later time.

African origin of caviomorph rodents is indicated by incisor enamel microstructure

Paleobiology ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Martin
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
South American ◽  
Late Oligocene ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Enamel Microstructure ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Caviomorph Rodents

The same three subtypes of derived multiserial Hunter-Schreger bands are found in the incisor enamel of African phiomorph rodents from the late Eocene-early Oligocene and the oldest South American Caviomorpha from the Deseadan (late Oligocene). The synapomorphies contained therein, especially arrangement and orientation of interprismatic matrix, make an African origin of the Caviomorpha very probable. A North American origin of the Caviomorpha is thus rejected, as only primitive pauciserial Hunter-Schreger bands have been observed in possible ischyromyoid caviomorph ancestors. A multiserial Schmelzmuster apparently never evolved in the North American rodent fauna.

Timing and magnitude of progressive exhumation and deformation associated with Eocene arc-continent collision in the NE Caribbean plate

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y.A. Román ◽  
E.J. Pujols ◽  
A.J. Cavosie ◽  
D.F. Stockli
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Virgin Islands ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
North American Plate ◽  
Early Eocene ◽  
Caribbean Plate ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
The Caribbean

Puerto Rico and the northern Virgin Islands together preserve a unique archive of island arc construction and plate margin deformation along the northeastern edge of the Caribbean plate. In Eocene times, arc-continent collision of the Caribbean plate and the North American plate led to transpressional deformation along two major fault systems in Puerto Rico, resulting in an island-wide depositional hiatus. Although styles and kinematics of this deformational event are seemingly well understood, the lack of chronologic constraints have left uncertainties related to the timing of inception and activity, the magnitude of crustal exhumation, and the character of deformation (i.e., progressive or polyphase). New zircon and apatite (U-Th)/He ages reveal that deformation associated with arc-continent collision started in the early Eocene (ca. 52 Ma) and ended in the early Oligocene (ca. 29 Ma). Over this 23 m.y. time frame, deformation was not restricted to major faults, instead it propagated gradually eastward, with punctuated episodes of vertical exhumation in the early Eocene (ca. 52−34 Ma) and late Eocene (ca. 36−29 Ma). In contrast, the northern Virgin Islands experienced rapid cooling and exhumation in the early Miocene (ca. 24−21 Ma) associated with the extensional opening of the Anegada Passage. The modeled thermal histories for the central and northeastern part of Puerto Rico indicate collision-related peak transpressional deformation between 36 and 29 Ma and an average exhumation rate 0.9 ± 0.6 km/m.y. These results represent the first direct constraints on the timing and magnitude of collisional exhumation and offer insights into the deformational evolution of the northeastern edge of the Caribbean plate.

Overview of Naturally Occurring Asbestos in California and Southwestern Nevada

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
R. Mark Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
North American ◽  
Volcanic Belt ◽  
Island Arc ◽  
North American Plate ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
The North ◽  
Rock Types ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Naturally Occurring Asbestos

ABSTRACT Naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) is being discovered in a widening array of geologic environments. The complex geology of the state of California is an excellent example of the variety of geologic environments and rock types that contain NOA. Notably, the majority of California rocks were emplaced during a continental collision of eastward-subducting oceanic and island arc terranes (Pacific and Farallon plates) with the westward continental margin of the North American plate between 65 and 150 MY BP. This collision and accompanying accretion of oceanic and island arc material from the Pacific plate onto the North American plate, as well as the thermal events caused by emplacement of the large volcanic belt that became today's Sierra Nevada mountain range, are the principal processes that produced the rocks where the majority of NOA-bearing units have been identified.

An ammonite zonation for the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) of the North American Cordillera

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 919-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giselle K. Jakobs ◽  
Paul L. Smith ◽  
Howard W. Tipper
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
Lower Boundary ◽  
Lower Jurassic ◽  
North American Cordillera ◽  
Queen Charlotte Islands ◽  
The North ◽  
Reference Sections ◽  
A New Species

This is the second in a series of papers intended to establish a Lower Jurassic ammonite zonation that takes into account the biostratigraphic and biogeographic peculiarities of the North American succession. In North America the lower boundary of the Toarcian is drawn at the first appearance of Dactylioceras above the last occurrence of Amaltheus and Fanninoceras. The lower Toarcian is represented by the Kanense Zone; the middle Toarcian by the Planulata and Crassicosta zones; and the upper Toarcian by the Hillebrandti and Yakounensis zones. Section 5 on the Yakoun River in the Queen Charlotte Islands is designated the stratotype for the Planulata, Crassicosta, and Hillebrandti zones; section 3 on the Yakoun River is designated the stratotype for the Yakounensis Zone; an ideal stratotype for the Kanense Zone is not presently known. Reference sections further illustrating the faunal associations that characterize the zones are designated in eastern Oregon (Snowshoe Formation) and northern British Columbia (Spatsizi Group). The Dactylioceratidae, Harpoceratinae, and Hildoceratinae provide the most important zonal indicators for the lower Toarcian; Dactylioceratidae, Phymatoceratinae, and Bouleiceratinae for the middle Toarcian; and Phymatoceratinae, Grammoceratinae, and Hammatoceratinae for the upper Toarcian. Phymatoceras hillebrandti is described as a new species.

Grossplots: a Method for Estimating the Temperature State of the Earth and of Australia, Cretaceous to Middle Miocene

1997 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 359 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. A. Frakes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Miocene ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Interval Data ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
Space Distribution ◽  
Mean Annual Temperature ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Temperature State

Grossplots are compilations of globally distributed palaeotemperature data onto latitude versus age plots, which are then contoured. The results specifically show the distribution of temperature over the globe and its variations over the Cretaceous to Middle Miocene interval. Data for continents and oceans are plotted separately in this investigation, and each such grossplot is in accord with the known climate changes of this time. The general scarcity of quantitative palaeotemperature information for Australia can be rectified by deriving, from the global continental grossplot, the relationship between mean annual temperature and latitude. When these are applied to the latitude band progressively occupied by Australia, the following observations can be made: (1) during the Early Cretaceous, the south-east of the continent was subjected to freezing wintertime temperatures; (2) peak warming of northern Australia was attained in the Turonian–Santonian, but this was followed by cooling later in the Cretaceous; (3) Early Tertiary warming until the Late Eocene particularly affected the northern half of the continent, but this region then underwent the most severe cooling in the Early Oligocene; (4) subsequently, the whole of the continent cooled uniformly from conditions only slightly warmer than at present. Despite Australia’s equatorward march, the Late Cretaceous to Palaeocene climates of the continent have been influenced more effectively by changes in the global climate state. However, global cooling since the Eocene has been less effective than drift in controlling the warming climate of Australia. The time–space distribution of precipitation over Australia is estimated from the global relationship between terrestrial temperature and rainfall. The Eocene experienced the heaviest rainfall (> 1560 mm year-1, in the north only), and the Eocene to Middle Miocene experienced moderately high rates (> 500 mm year-1 in the northern three-quarters of the continent). Tertiary brown coals in southern regions were formed in proximity to areas of high rainfall. Continentwide low rates (< 500 mm year-1; semi-arid) are suggested for the Cretaceous, except for wet conditions in the north during the Albian–Santonian and the Late Maastrichtian. Estimates of precipitation are subject to factors such as continentality and location of moisture sources, which cannot be evaluated at present.

Bryozoa of the Mission Argillite (Permian), northeastern Washington

2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest H. Gilmour ◽  
Edward M. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
North American ◽  
Type Species ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
North American Plate ◽  
Western Pacific Ocean ◽  
Late Permian ◽  
The North

Fifteen species of Late Permian bryozoans occur in a biohermal bank in the Mission Argillite of northeastern Washington. These include two species conspecific with species described from Japan and 13 new species, one of which is the type species of a new genus. The presence of two species, Dyscritella iwaizakiensis Sakagami, 1961, and Hayasakapora cf. erectoradiata Sakagami, 1960, previously reported from Japan, and the similarity of new species with those previously described from Japan, China and Russia supports the idea that these rocks were originally deposited in the southeastern or central western Pacific Ocean and subsequently accreted to the North American Plate.Bryozoans and previously reported fusulinids indicate that the biohermal bank is latest Wordian (Kazanian).Newly described bryozoans include the new genus and type species Sakagamiina easternensis belonging to the Timanodictyidae. Other new species are Fistuliramus pacificus, Meekoporella inflecta, Neoeridotrypella missionensis, Coeloclemis urhausenii, Tabulipora colvillensis, Rhombotrypella kettlensis, Pamirella oculus, Pinegopora petita, Wjatkella nanea, Alternifenestella vagrantia, Polypora arbusca, and Mackinneyella stylettia.

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