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The Archean Golden Pond sequence is made up of deformed and metamorphosed conglomerates, greywackes, and mafic volcanic rocks, and is overlain by ferrugineous metasedimentary rocks of the North iron formation. The clastic rocks were derived mainly from a volcanic source that had undergone weak chemical weathering. Their source area was dominated by the presence of 60–80% high-Al2O3 felsic volcanics having strongly fractionated [La/Sm]N (= 3.7 ± 0.3) and very low Ta/Th ratios (= 0.09 ± 0.02), with lesser proportions of basaltic (10–30%) and ultramafic volcanic rocks (1–10%). The ferrugineous metasedimentary rocks can be modelled by mixing 20–40% siliciclastic material, of the composition of the average Golden Pond greywacke, with an Fe- and Si-rich precipitate (molecular Fe/Si = 0.6 ± 0.2). The high-Al2O3 felsic source rocks were most likely produced by subduction processes within an oceanic arc environment, but the mafic and ultramafic volcanic rocks were derived by different processes from an asthenospheric mantle source, possibly in an oceanic rift environment. Therefore, it is suggested that the ultramafic, mafic, and felsic volcanic rocks were brought to the same erosional level by dissection of the arc system and rapid exhumation of the felsic arc lithologies and the deeper ocean floor. Intrabasinal hydrothermal activity associated with contemporaneous mafic volcanism and (or) graben development may have also been responsible for the local production of the Fe-rich precipitates of the North iron formation.

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The Mont Logan Nappe is part of the Taconian internal domain of the Quebec Appalachians, and is entirely made up of synrift to passive margin elastics and volcanics of the Shickshock Group. Rocks of the Mont Logan Nappe were affected by both Taconian and Acadian deformations but regional prograde metamorphism is Taconian and limited to the D1 deformational event. Thermobarometry and mineral assemblages indicate that the metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks of the Mont Logan Nappe have recorded peak temperatures in the range 610–700 °C under pressures of approximately 600–700 MPa, and that prograde metamorphism was accompanied by the development of an inverted metamorphic gradient of −40 to −75 °C/km. The preferred interpretation of the cause of the inverted gradient is dissipative heating accompanying deformation along an intracontinental synmetamorphic thrust fault located at the top of the inverted metamorphic sequence.

In the northwestern Pontiac Subprovince, metavolcanic rocks are exposed within a metagraywacke sequence that is intruded by metamorphosed mafic dykes. The metavolcanics are Al-undepleted komatiites ([La/Sm]N = 0.3, [Tb/Yb]N = 0.9) and tholeiitic Fe-basalts ([La/Sm]N = 0.8 and [Tb/Yb]N = 0.8). The nearly flat chondrite-normalized distributions of high field strength elements (HFSE), Ti and P, the constant Zr/Y, Nb/Th, Ti/Zr, and Ti/P ratios, and the lack of depletion of HFSE relative to rare-earth elements (REE) in both ultramafic and mafic metavolcanics, imply that crustal assimilation and magma mixing with crustal melts were not significant during differentiation and argue against the presence of subduction-related magmatic components. Contemporaneous volcanism and sedimentation in the northwestern Pontiac Subprovince are unlikely. The metavolcanics do not show any evidence of crustal contamination and likely represent a structurally emplaced, disrupted assemblage, chemically similar to early volcanics of the adjacent southern Abitibi Subprovince.Metamorphosed mafic dykes intruding the metagraywackes are not genetically related to the metavolcanics. The dykes have high CaO, P2O5, K2O, Ba, Rb, and Sr, intermediate Cr and Ni contents, and strongly fractionated REE patterns ([La/Yb]N = 10.8). Normalized to the primitive mantle, they display pronounced negative Nb, Ta, Ti, Zr, and Hf anomalies. These amphibolites are metamorphosed equivalents of Mg-rich calc-alkaline lamprophyre dykes, most likely derived from a hybridized mantle source. Mantle metasomatism was probably related to a subduction event prior to the peak of compressional Kenoran deformation in the Pontiac Subprovince.