No abstract

The Makkovik Province of Labrador represents the extension of the Ketilidian Mobile Belt of south Greenland into mainland North America; it exhibits a threefold division into a foreland region, a fold-and-thrust belt, and an interior magmatic zone. The Kaipokok Domain is dominated by Archaean basement rocks that form an extension of the North Atlantic Craton, but Proterozoic reworking is recorded by the reorientation of a c . 2230 Ma dyke swarm. Supracrustal rocks, consisting of shallow-marine sedimentary rocks overlain by greywackes and mafic volcanic rocks, rest unconformably upon Archaean basement, but towards the interior of the belt the basal unconformity is eradicated by northwest-directed thrusting. In the Aillik Domain , highgrade supracrustal rocks of similar aspect to those of the Kaipokok Domain are separated from the basement by mylonite zones, in a thick-skinned fold-and-thrust belt ( Kaipokok Bay Structural Zone ), believed to record significant northwest-directed translation. The Aillik Domain also contains abundant felsic volcanic rocks that lack typical arc-like geochemical signatures. The Cape Harrison Domain is dominated by plutonic rocks, including suites of 1840 Ma, 1800 Ma, 1720 Ma and 1650 Ma age, but gneissic inliers apparently represent ‘juvenile’ Proterozoic crust. The dominant 1800-1720 Ma plutonic suites are late-orogenic to post-orogenic, siliceous, potassic granitoid rocks, which resemble Phanerozoic post-collisional suites, rather than subduction-related arc batholiths. Nd isotopic variations position the eastern edge of the North Atlantic Craton close to the boundary between the Aillik and Cape Harrison Domains. The structural evolution of the Makkovik Province records a shift from pre- 1800 Ma northwest-directed thrusting to post-1800 Ma tight upright folding, also northwest-verging. However, there is also evidence for earlier (pre- 1890 Ma) events in the Kaipokok Domain. Major unresolved problems include the timing of early sub-horizontal deformation (perhaps related to collisional events), the age relations and setting of supracrustal sequences, the location of suture zones, the absence of clear arc-like magmatic assemblages, and the nature and antiquity of the eastern juvenile crustal block.

Contact aureoles of the anorthositic to granitic plutons of the Mesoproterozoic Nain Plutonic Suite (NPS), Labrador, are particularly well developed in the Palaeoproterozoic granulite facies, metasedimentary, Tasiuyak gneiss. Granulite facies regional metamorphism (MR), c. 1860 Ma, led to biotite dehydration melting of the paragneiss and melt migration, leaving behind biotite‐poor, garnet–sillimanite‐bearing quartzofeldspathic rocks. Subsequently, Tasiuyak gneiss within a c. 1320 Ma contact aureole of the NPS was statically subjected to lower pressure, but higher temperature conditions (MC), leading to a second partial melting event, and the generation of complex mineral assemblages and microstructures, which were controlled to a large extent by the textures of the MR assemblage. This control is clearly seen in scanning electron microscopic images of thin sections and is further supported by phase equilibria modelling. Samples collected within the contact aureole near Anaktalik Brook, west of Nain, Labrador, mainly consist of spinel–cordierite and orthopyroxene–cordierite (or plagioclase) pseudomorphs after MR sillimanite and garnet, respectively, within a quartzofeldspathic matrix. In addition, some samples contain fine‐grained intergrowths of K‐feldspar–quartz–cordierite–orthopyroxene inferred to be pseudomorphs after osumulite. Microstructural evidence of the former melt includes (i) coarse‐grained K‐feldspar–quartz–cordierite–orthopyroxene domains that locally cut the rock fabric and are inferred to represent neosome; (ii) very fine‐ to medium‐grained cordierite–quartz intergrowths interpreted to have formed by a reaction involving dissolution of biotite and feldspar in melt; and (iii) fine‐scale interstitial pools or micro‐cracks filled by feldspar interpreted to have crystallized from melt. Ultrahigh temperature (UHT) conditions during contact metamorphism are supported by (i) solidus temperatures >900 °C estimated for all samples, coupled with extensive textural evidence for contact‐related partial melting; (ii) the inferred (former) presence of osumilite; and (iii) titanium‐in‐quartz thermometry indicating temperatures within error of 900 °C. The UHT environment in which these unusual textures and minerals were developed was likely a consequence of the superposition of more than one contact metamorphic event upon the already relatively anhydrous Tasiuyak gneiss.

Zircon U–Pb dating on rhyolites from three different localities in the upper Aillik group, a volcano-sedimentary sequence of the Makkovik Orogen in Labrador, indicates two distinct pulses of volcanic activity at about 1860 and 1807 Ma. The individual rhyolite ages of [Formula: see text], 1856 ± 2, and 1807 ± 3 Ma are 40–150 Ma older than Rb–Sr ages determined previously on the same rocks. A slight scatter of zircon data observed for one of the rhyolites and the presence of old zircon cores suggest that the felsic magmas were derived in part from older continental material. Analyses of monazite and titanite from two anatectic rocks, a migmatite and leucogranite from a gneiss terrain adjacent to the supracrustals, document a period of high-grade metamorphism in the interval 1794 ± 2 to 1761 ± 2 Ma. This period is considered the terminal phase of the Makkovikian Orogeny. Zircons in the migmatite yield minimum ages ranging from about 1800 to 2340 Ma, indicating a derivation from latest Archean to early Proterozoic basement rocks.Zircon dating on a rhyolite from the Bruce River Group within the ~1650 Ma old Trans-Labrador batholith yields an age of 1649 ± 1 Ma. This age suggests that Bruce River acid volcanism was related to Trans-Labrador batholith emplacement.

Abstract. Marine seismic reflection profiles across the Early Proterozoic Makko•-Kefilidian Orogen in the Labrador Sea region suggest that it is a doubly vergent, asymmetric orogenic belt, comparable in width to younger collisional orogens. A southeast dipping reflector package is correlated with on-land shear zones that mark the southeastern limit of exposed reworked Archcan crust and is also associated with a cryptic isotopic boundary in granites, which documents a transition from