Constraints on the post-orogenic tectonic history along the Salmon River suture zone from low-temperature thermochronology, western Idaho and eastern Oregon

ABSTRACT The abrupt boundary between accreted terranes and cratonic North America is well exposed along the Salmon River suture zone in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. To constrain the post-suturing deformation of this boundary, we assess the cooling history using zircon and apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronology. Pre-Miocene granitic rocks, along a regional transect, were sampled from accreted terranes of the Blue Mountains Province to cratonic North America (Idaho batholith). Each sample was taken from a known structural position relative to a paleotopographic surface represented by the basal unit of the Miocene Columbia River basalts. An isopach map constructed for the Imnaha Basalt, the basal member of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), confirms the presence of a Miocene paleocanyon parallel to the northern part of Hells Canyon. The (U–Th)/He zircon dates indicate mostly Cretaceous cooling below 200°C, with the ages getting generally younger from west to east. The (U–Th)/He apatite dates indicate Late Cretaceous–Paleogene cooling, which post-dates tectonism associated with the western Idaho shear zone (WISZ). However, (U–Th)/He apatite dates younger than the Imnaha Basalt, with one date of 3.4 ± 0.6 Ma, occur at the bottom of Hells Canyon. These young (U–Th)/He apatite dates occur along the trend of the Miocene paleocanyon, and cannot be attributed to local exhumation related to faults. We propose that burial of Mesozoic basement rocks by the Columbia River basalts occurred regionally. However, the only samples currently exposed at the Earth’s surface that were thermally reset by this burial were at the bottom of the Miocene paleocanyon. If so, exhumation of these samples must have occurred by river incision in the last 4 million years. Thus, the low-temperature thermochronology data record a combination of Late Cretaceous–Paleogene cooling after deformation along the WISZ that structurally overprinted the suture zone and Neogene cooling associated with rapid river incision.

Age and structure of the Crevice pluton: overlapping orogens in west-central Idaho?

New U–Pb zircon geochronology from the Riggins region of west-central Idaho refines the timing of contractional deformation across the Salmon River suture zone (SRSZ), a broad north- to northeast-striking belt (>25 km wide) of high strain recording Jura-Cretaceous island-arc–continent collision. Laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) yields mid-Cretaceous crystallization ages on formerly undated plutonic rocks sampled from the Salmon River canyon. In the Crevice pluton (∼105 Ma), the development of steep to moderate northerly striking gneissic foliation (S1) was followed by tops-to-the-west slip on shallow mylonitic shear zones (S2) and brittle overprinting via systematic joints (Jn) of regional extent. Together, these structures form the pluton’s internal architecture. Subvertical gneissic foliation in the adjacent Looking Glass pluton (∼92 Ma) indicates ductile deformation was ongoing in the Late Cretaceous. Prior to this investigation, penetrative fabrics in local arc volcanogenic, plutonic, and continental rocks have been unequivocally linked to post-collisional dextral transpression on the narrow (<10 km wide) western Idaho shear zone (WISZ). As an alternative to this model which requires spatially overlapping but temporally distinct orogenic belts (WISZ–SRSZ), we consider a protracted history whereby regional synmetamorphic structures accumulated over a pre-118 Ma to post-92 Ma interval without an overprinting orogen-scale ductile shear zone. In our view, a progressive deformation history more accurately accounts for the time-transgressive nature and structural continuity of fabrics observed across the arc–continent transition. This tectonic history proposed for western Idaho may be analogous to other long-lived accretionary margins in the North American Cordillera (e.g., Omineca Belt of southeastern British Columbia).