Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic History of the Pacific Margin Along Antarctica: ABSTRACT

AAPG Bulletin ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Collinson, John L. Isbell,
1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 994-999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvi Ben-Avraham ◽  
Amos Nur

On land much of the Pacific margin is composed of allochthonous terranes, which are of continental and noncontinental origins. In the oceans numerous oceanic rises, some of which are submerged continental fragments, are presently embedded in the oceanic plates. These oceanic rises are probably future accreted terranes. They thus represent one stage in the development of allochthonous terranes found in orogenic zones. Minerals found in these terranes were formed at locations that in the past could have been thousands of kilometres away. This is because some oceanic terranes were split into several parts that moved with their respective plates in different directions. Also, faulting at the continental margins caused large-scale concurrent and post-accretionary horizontal translations of hundreds of kilometres of the allochthonous terranes.Studying the allochthonous terranes may provide important information about the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic history of the Pacific Ocean, because most of the oceanic crust of this age has disappeared leaving only those allochthonous terranes that were once oceanic plateaus within this crust. Understanding the history of the Pacific basin plates and of the allochthonous terranes may lead to the discovery of minerals within the submerged oceanic plateaus.


From the Middle Jurassic onwards persistent igneous activity in the southern Andes around 46 °S was controlled by easterly dipping subduction along the Pacific margin. Cogenetic plutonic rocks belonging to the Patagonian batholith, and calc-alkaline volcanics ranging from basaltic andesites to rhyolitic tuffs and ignimbrites are the principal products. Erosion of the primary volcanics has led at various times to the development of thick volcaniclastic sequences, for example in the Cretaceous-Lower Tertiary Divisadero formation. The Coyhaique region marks the northerly extension of a narrow back-arc basin in which the marine Neocomian successions accumulated. Volcaniclastics from the island arc, which presumably lay to the west, are intercalated with the sediments. Although the marine basin was short-lived a mildly extensional back-arc regime may have existed through much of Mesozoic-Recent times. Widespread basalt-rhyolite volcanism on the eastern side of the cordillera seems to have been associated with this tectonic environment. Remnants of the Patagonian basalt plateau at latitude 45-47 °S extend from the Argentine-Chile frontier to Lago Colhue Huapi. Four principal age and compositional groups have been distinguished in the lavas, (i) The oldest, which are about 80 Ma, occur in sections at Senguerr and Morro Negro. They are almost exclusively tholeiitic, but show some calc-alkaline affinities and resemble in other respects basalts from marginal basins, (ii) The second group (57-43 Ma) occur in the lower part of the Chile Chico section with a compositional spread from olivine tholeiites through alkali basalts to one occurrence of a basanite. (iii) The upper part of the main plateau sequence, where the flows are in the range 25-9 Ma, are dominantly of alkali basalt composition, (iv) Post-plateau flows from small cinder cones on the surface of the plateau range in age from ca. 4 Ma to 0.2 Ma or less. They are mostly highly undersaturated basanites, with occasional leucite basanites, enriched in incompatible elements. A few of the earlier tholeiites with calc-alkali traits may have been closely associated with subduction or marginal basin processes. The younger lavas are more alkalic intraplate types generated in the remote back-arc extensional zone.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiying He ◽  
Peter Cawood ◽  
Yuejun Wang

<p>In Southeast Asia, establishing the origin and associated tectonic setting of Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic igneous rocks is complicated by structural overprinting and the complex tectonic evolution of the Paleotethyan regime. Hainan Island, located at the south-eastern margin of the Paleotethys, and lacking significant tectonic overprints is a key to understand amalgamation history of the Indochina and South China blocks and to constraining the tectonic evolution of Paleotethys ocean in southeast Asia.</p><p>The Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic record of igneous rocks on Hainan Island includes the following. 1) ca. 350 Ma island arc andesites and ca. 330 Ma metabasites, the latter with both MORB- and arc-like geochemical affinities, positive ε<sub>Nd</sub>(t) values of +5.86 – +9.85 and rare inherited zircons with a zircon age of 1400 Ma inferred to be derived from a MORB source with the input of a slab-derived component. Together with the ~350 Ma island arc andesites, the Carboniferous tectonic environment is supposed to be a continental back-arc basin setting. 2) Late Permian gneiss granitoids (272-252 Ma) characterized by a gneissic foliation and calc-alkaline I-type geochemical affinities with negative Nb-Ta and Ti anomalies, related to metasomatized mantle wedge modified by the sediment-derived component in a continental arc setting. 3) ca. 257 Ma arc-like andesites, which further validate a subduction-related setting. 4) Peraluminious Early-Middle Triassic massive granitoids (251–243 Ma) with slightly high A/CNK ratios, δ<sup>18</sup>O values (up to 11.75 ‰) and Sr/Y ratios, inferred to have formed in a compressive regime from a mixed source of greywacke and metabasite. 5) Middle-Late Triassic (242–225 Ma) high-K calc-alkaline granitoids with high zircon temperatures (842–867°C) and geochemical signatures of A-type granites. They show slightly low whole-rock ε<sub>Nd</sub>(t) and zircon ε<sub>Hf</sub>(t) values, suggestive of the derivation from a metabasite–greywacke source in an extensional setting. 6) ca. 240 Ma gabbro-dolerites showing enrichment in LILEs, depletion in HFSEs, negative ε<sub>Nd</sub> (t)-ε<sub>Hf</sub> (t) values (−8.45 to −1.05 and −5.9 to −2.7, respectively) and crustal-like δ<sup>18</sup>O values (7.26–8.70‰), it is implied that the Hainan Island entered into post-collisional environment in response to the asthenosphere upwelling shortly after the closure of back-arc basin.</p><p>Thus, Hainan Island provides a record of Carboniferous back-arc basin opening, followed by an extended Permian–Triassic history of subduction-related consumption leading to orogenic assembly and extensional collapse between the South China and Indochina blocks. Such a tempo-spatial pattern is consistent with that along the Song Ma–Ailaoshan suture zone rather than the magmatic history of eastern South China and indicates that the Paleotethys extended west to at least Hainan Island in the Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic.</p>


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