Provenance, Depositional and Diagenetic Reconstruction of the Early Palaeozoic Succession in Kupwara District, Kashmir, North-western Himalaya

Early Palaeozoic succession in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, North-western Himalaya comprise of sandstone, shale, carbonates and slate. The petrological properties of these rocks were used to work out the provenance, depositional environment and their diagenetic history. The siliciclastic sediments with interbedded carbonate rocks indicate shifts in sea level and consequent changes in energy conditions of the basin as well as biogenic interferences leading to carbonate precipitation in a shallow marine depositional environment. Provenance of these rocks has been of mixed nature with monocrystalline quartz dominant in sandstones indicating greater contribution from igneous sources.

Preservation of late Palaeozoic glacial rock surfaces by burial prior to Cenozoic exhumation, Fleurieu Peninsula, southeastern Australia

The antiquity of the Australian landscape has long been the subject of debate, with some studies inferring extraordinary longevity (>108 Myr) for some subaerial landforms dating back to the early Palaeozoic. A number of early Permian glacial erosion surfaces in the Fleurieu Peninsula, southeastern Australia, provide an opportunity to test the notion of long-term subaerial emergence, and thus tectonic and geomorphic stability, of parts of the Australian continent. Here we present results of apatite fission-track analysis (AFTA) applied to a suite of samples collected from localities where glacial erosion features of early Permian age are developed. Our synthesis of AFTA results with geological data reveals four cooling episodes (C1-4), which are interpreted to represent distinct stages of exhumation. These episodes occurred during the Ediacaran to Ordovician (C1), mid-Carboniferous (C2), Permian to mid-Triassic (C3) and Eocene to Oligocene (C4).The interpretation of AFTA results indicates that the Neoproterozoic-Lower Palaeozoic metasedimentary rocks and granitic intrusions upon which the glacial rock surfaces generally occur were exhumed to the surface by the latest Carboniferous-earliest Permian during episodes C2 and/or C3, possibly as a far-field response to the intraplate Alice Springs Orogeny. The resulting landscapes were sculpted by glacial erosive processes. Our interpretation of AFTA results suggests that the erosion surfaces and overlying Permian sedimentary rocks were subsequently heated to between ∼60 and 80°C, which we interpret as recording burial by a sedimentary cover comprising Permian and younger strata, roughly 1 kilometre in thickness. This interpretation is consistent with existing thermochronological datasets from this region, and also with palynological and geochronological datasets from sediments in offshore Mesozoic-Cenozoic-age basins along the southern Australian margin that indicate substantial recycling of Permian-Cretaceous sediments. We propose that the exhumation which led to the contemporary exposure of the glacial erosion features began during the Eocene to Oligocene (episode C4), during the initial stages of intraplate deformation that has shaped the Mt Lofty and Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Our findings are consistent with several recent studies, which suggest that burial and exhumation has played a key role in the preservation and contemporary re-exposure of Gondwanan geomorphic features in the Australian landscape.

Geochemical reconnaissance of the Guéra and Ouaddaï Massifs in Chad: evolution of Proterozoic crust in the Central Sahara Shield

In 1964, W.Q. Kennedy suggested that the crust of Saharan Africa is different from the rest of Africa. To date, the geologic evolution of this region remains obscure because the age and composition of crystalline basement are unknown across large sectors of the Sahara. Most of Africa comprises Archaean cratons surrounded by Palaeo- to Mesoproterozoic orogenic belts, which together constitute Africa’s three major shields (the Southern, Central and West African Shields), finally assembled along belts of Pan-African rocks. By contrast, central Saharan Africa (5.3x106 km2), an area just over half the size of Europe, is considered either as a Neoproterozoic region constructed of relatively juvenile crust (0.5 to 1.0 Ga), or as an older (North African) shield that was reactivated and re-stabilized during that time, a period commonly referred to as “Pan African”. Here, using U-Pb zircon age determinations and Nd isotopic data, we show that remote areas in Chad, part of the undated Darfur Plateau stretching across ¾ million km2 of the central Sahara, comprise an extensive Neoproterozoic crystalline basement of pre-tectonic gabbro-tonalite-granodiorite and predominantly post-tectonic alkali feldspar granites and syenites that intruded between ca. 550 to 1050 Ma. This basement is flanked along its western margin by a Neoproterozoic continental calc-alkaline magmatic arc coupled to a cryptic suture zone that can be traced for ~2400 km from Tibesti through western Darfur into Cameroon. We refer to this as the Central Saharan Belt. This, in a Gondwana framework, is part of a greater arc structure, which we here term the Great Central Gondwana Arc (GCGA). Inherited zircons and Nd isotopic ratios indicate the Neoproterozoic magmas in the central Sahara were predominantly derived from Mesoproterozoic continental lithosphere. Regional deformation between 613 to 623 Ma marks the onset of late alkaline granite magmatism that was widespread across a much larger area of North Africa until about 550 Ma. During this magmatism, the region was exhumed and eroded, leaving a regional peneplain on which early Palaeozoic (Lower-Middle Cambrian) siliciclastic sediments were subsequently deposited, as part of a thick and widespread cover that stretched across much of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Detrital zircons in these cover sequences provide evidence that a substantial volume of detritus was derived from the central Sahara region, because these sequences include ‘Kibaran-age’ zircons (ca. 1000 Ma) for which a source terrain has hitherto been lacking. We propose that, in preference to calling the central Sahara a “ghost” or “meta” craton, it should be called the Central Sahara Shield.

Ediacaran initial subduction and Cambrian slab rollback of the Junggar Ocean: New evidence from igneous tectonic blocks and gabbro enclave in Early Palaeozoic accretionary complexes, southern West Junggar, NW China

New zircon U–Pb ages and whole-rock chemical data from four adakitic and two non-adakitic igneous rocks as tectonic blocks in the southern West Junggar accretionary complexes, northwestern China and one gabbro enclave in adakitic block provide further constraints on the initial subduction and following rollback process of the Junggar Ocean as part of southern Palaeo-Asian Ocean. The oldest adakitic monzonite in Tangbale is intruded by the non-adakitic quartz monzonite at 549 Ma, and the youngest adakitic diorite in Tierekehuola formed at 520 Ma. The Ediacaran–Cambrian magmatism show a N-wards younger trend. The high-SiO2 adakitic rocks have high Sr (300–663 ppm) and low Y (6.68–12.2 ppm), with Sr/Y = 40–84 and Mg no. = 46–60, whereas the non-adakitic rocks have high Y (13.2–22.7 ppm) and Yb (2.32–2.92 ppm), with Mg no. = 36–40. The gabbro has high MgO (14.81–15.11 wt%), Co (45–48 ppm), Cr (1120–1360 ppm) and Ni (231–288 ppm), with Mg no. = 72–73. All the samples show similar large-ion lithophile element (LILE) and light rare earth element (LREE) enrichment and Nb, Ta, Ti and varying Zr and Hf depletion, suggesting that they were formed in a subduction-related setting. The adakitic rocks were produced by partial melting of subducted oceanic slab, but the melts were modified by mantle wedge and slab-derived fluids; the non-adakitic rocks were likely derived from partial melts of the middle-lower arc crust; and the gabbro originated from the mantle wedge modified by slab-derived fluids. The magmatism could have been generated during the Ediacaran initial subduction and Cambrian slab rollback of the Junggar Ocean.

The Cuyano proto-ocean between the Chilenia and Cuyania terranes: rifting and plume interaction during the Neoproterozoic – early Palaeozoic evolution of the SW Gondwana margin

The Precordillera mafic–ultramafic belt (PMUB), located in central-western Argentina, comprises mafic and ultramafic bodies interlayered and/or in tectonic contact with marine siliciclastic units. Whole-rock, mineral geochemistry and Nd–Sr isotope analyses performed in magmatic rocks suggest a relatively different spatial and temporal evolution along the belt. The southern PMUB (south of 32° S) evolved as an intra-continental rifted margin with an enriched mid-ocean-ridge basalt (E-MORB) tholeiitic to alkaline magmatism, to a proto-ocean basin (the Cuyano proto-ocean) with tholeiitic normal-MORB geochemical signature. Based on neodymium model ages (TDM), the magmatic activity started during the late Neoproterozoic Era and continued into the early Palaeozoic Era. Instead, the northern PMUB (28–32° S) evolved as an intra-continental rifted margin with dominant tholeiitic E-MORB to continental flood basalt (CFB) magmatism during the early Palaeozoic Era. ϵNd values (+3.4 to +8.4), rare earth element trends and high-field-strength element systematics, together with an estimated potential mantle temperature of c. 50–100°C above ambient mantle, suggest the PMUB magmatism derived from an enriched mantle source related to the effect of a rising plume linked to the Iapetus Ocean opening. In particular, TDM estimations of 600–550 Ma agree with reported magmatism in central to southern Appalachians. The magmatism in the PMUB, and those registered in the Neoproterozoic Catoctin Formation and in the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen in the conjugated Laurentian margin, seem to be contemporaneous, sharing a similar plume-enriched mantle source. In this context, the E-MORB signature identified along the PMUB can be described as a plume-distal ridge tectonic setting over an extended margin.