Geologic observations in the San Marcos area, Coahuila, Mexico: the case for sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization in the Sabinas basin during the Laramide orogeny

The sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization in the San Marcos area of Coahuila, northeastern Mexico occurs predominantly at an Early Cretaceous redox boundary between footwall siliciclastic red beds of the San Marcos Formation and hanging-wall carbonate strata of the Cupido Formation in the Sabinas basin. The hypogene mineralization is mainly present as chalcocite-group minerals, with additional bornite and chalcopyrite, and everywhere occurs in both disseminated and vein/veinlet forms. Supergene copper-bearing oxides (malachite, chalcanthite, azurite, chrysocolla) are, however, the dominant surface expression of the mineralization. Additional sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization also occurs, albeit erratically, in lower strata of the Sabinas basin as well as in veins in basement granitoids, thus spanning ~3000 m of basin stratigraphy. Where best developed, the stratiform mineralization displays intense structural control proximal to the regional San Marcos fault system. This major bounding fault, regional in nature and with numerous periods of activity, controlled the evolution of the Sabinas basin. Structural controls on mineralization include stacked, shallow-angle, bedding-parallel, northeast-vergent thrust faults and associated drag folds, in addition to numerous, steeply-dipping, northeast-trending copper-bearing veins and veinlets. The mineralized veins and veinlets, and the bedding-parallel thrusts display mutually crosscutting relationships. These elements are all consistent and in harmony with a regional northeast-trending direction of horizontal shortening accompanying reverse motion of the San Marcos fault system. Inversion along the San Marcos fault system, and the entire Sabinas basin in the Paleogene from ~60 to 40 Ma, resulted from wholesale contractional deformation during the Laramide (Mexican) orogeny. Hence, emplacement of the sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization at San Marcos, and elsewhere in the larger Coahuila region, is interpreted as a natural corollary of large-scale, metal-bearing fluid expulsion, migration, and precipitation resulting from orogenic shortening, lithostatic loading, and squeezing of the Sabinas basin during Mexican orogen construction. Although sedimentation of the host strata in the Sabinas basin took place in a pericratonic setting associated with the opening of the Gulf of Mexico, sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver mineralization occurred during orogenic uplift and conversion of the original basin into an orogen-foreland pair, with similarities to some of the world´s largest sediment-hosted stratiform copper provinces.

Crustal Thermal Structure and Exhumation Rates in the Southern Alps Near the Central Alpine Fault, New Zealand

© 2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. We investigate orogenic uplift rates and the thermal structure of the crust in the hanging wall of the Alpine Fault, New Zealand, using the hypocenters of 7,719 earthquakes that occurred in the central Southern Alps between late 2008 and early 2017, and previously published thermochronological data. We assume that the base of the seismogenic zone corresponds to a brittle-ductile transition at some fixed temperature, which we estimate by fitting the combined thermochronological data and distribution of seismicity using a multi-1-D approach. We find that exhumation rates vary from 1 to 8 mm/yr, with maximum values observed in the area of highest topography near Aoraki/Mount Cook, a finding consistent with previous geologic and geodetic analyses. We estimate the temperature of the brittle-ductile transition beneath the Southern Alps to be 410–430°C, which is higher than expected for Alpine Fault rocks whose bulk lithology is likely dominated by quartz. The high estimated temperatures at the base of the seismogenic zone likely reflect the unmodeled effects of high fluid pressures or strain rates.

Crustal Thermal Structure and Exhumation Rates in the Southern Alps Near the Central Alpine Fault, New Zealand

© 2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. We investigate orogenic uplift rates and the thermal structure of the crust in the hanging wall of the Alpine Fault, New Zealand, using the hypocenters of 7,719 earthquakes that occurred in the central Southern Alps between late 2008 and early 2017, and previously published thermochronological data. We assume that the base of the seismogenic zone corresponds to a brittle-ductile transition at some fixed temperature, which we estimate by fitting the combined thermochronological data and distribution of seismicity using a multi-1-D approach. We find that exhumation rates vary from 1 to 8 mm/yr, with maximum values observed in the area of highest topography near Aoraki/Mount Cook, a finding consistent with previous geologic and geodetic analyses. We estimate the temperature of the brittle-ductile transition beneath the Southern Alps to be 410–430°C, which is higher than expected for Alpine Fault rocks whose bulk lithology is likely dominated by quartz. The high estimated temperatures at the base of the seismogenic zone likely reflect the unmodeled effects of high fluid pressures or strain rates.

Amount and location of tectonic uplift in the Urmia region of northwest Iran from the Permian to the Neogene

The Urmia Lake Basin is located between the West and East Azerbaijan provinces in the northwest of Iran. Lake Urmia is the twentieth largest lake and second largest hypersaline lake in the world. Stratigraphic columns have been constructed, using published information, to compare the sedimentary units deposited from the Permian to the Neogene on the east and west sides of the lake, and to use these to quantity subsidence and uplift. East of the lake, the sedimentary section is more complete and has been the subject of detailed stratigraphic studies, including the compilation of measured sections for some units. West of the lake, the section is incomplete and less work has been done; three columns illustrate variations in the preserved stratigraphy for the time interval. In all cases, the columns are capped by the Oligocene–Miocene Qom Formation, which was deposited during a post-orogenic marine transgression and unconformably overlies units ranging from Precambrian to Cretaceous. Permian to Cretaceous stratigraphy is used to measure subsidence in the Lake Urmia basin up to the end of the Cretaceous, and then, the subsequent orogenic uplift, which was followed by further subsidence recorded by the deposition of the Qom Formation in the Oligocene–Miocene.

Colisional deformations of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. Part 2. Geodynamic modes and kinematic mechanism of tectonic inversion

The tectonic inversion of the Dnieper-Donets Basin and the Donets Foldbelt began in the Late Hercynian epoch under the influence of collisional movements of the left-sided knematics of the compression orogen on the edge of the Paleotethis. It is shown that as a result of gently inclined disruptions in the Paleozoic platform cover of the West Donets Graben, a thrust lattice was formed, which controlled the processes of collisional buckling of the horizons in the thrust and strike-slip modes. As a result of the displacement of geomasses from the axial zones of maximum compression to the zones of "geodynamic shadow" - in the direction of the Basin borders in the northern and axial parts of the Graben, linear uplift folds were formed, and in the southern - thrust covers. At the Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic, in the mode of interference of the uplift-thrust and strike-slip fields of the reverse, right-sided kinematics of movements, deformations of the Hercynian thrust lattice and the dynamically conjugated linear near-fault folding took place with the formation of coulisse articulated upthrust-fold zones and en-echelonly overthrust covers. The geodynamic setting of the grouping of the compression axes in the western part of the Donbass, which was experiencing orogenic uplift, caused the thrust of allochthonous geomasses to the syneclise related autochthon of the southeastern segment of the depression. In the West Donets Graben, this caused an increase in the section beyond the Hercynian Neoautochthon and the Cimmerian-Alpine allochthon with the formation of a clinoform wedging Segment. Along the main strike-slip faults, which form the tectonic rails of its invasion, geodynamic zones of geomass squeezing out, formed by curvilinear, en-echelonly upthrow folds, were formed. In the foreland of the Segment, at the ends of dynamically coupled thrust and strike-slip faults, a forward compression fan is formed; in the hinterland, on the roots of thrust covers, folded suture zones are formed. Based on the results of the kinematic analysis of the Hercynian and Alpine deformation structures, a new kinematic model of the tectonic inversion of the riftogenic structure of the Southeastern Segment of the Dnieper-Donets Basin has been developed. In accordance with it, the deformations of the sedimentary cover of the West Donets Graben were carried out according to the kinematic mechanism of a transverse orocline of pushing geomasses of the sub-thrust type, under the pressure of the tectonic stamp of the Donets Foldbelt.