Detrital zircon geochronology of Neoproterozoic–Lower Cambrian passive-margin strata of the White-Inyo Range, east-central California: Implications for the Mojave–Snow Lake fault hypothesis

Abstract

Correlation of lithotectonic packages across major transcurrent structures is critical to understanding the tectonic evolution of the North American continental margin.Detrital zircon geochronology of uppermost Proterozoic to Lower Paleozoic mio geo clinal strata from the White-Inyo Mountains permits evaluation of: (1) the age and provenance of these metasediments and (2) a model for truncation of the passive margin along a postulated large-magnitude Cretaceous dextral shear zone, i.e., the Mojave-Snow Lake fault. U-Pb ages of detrital zircons from the Neoproterozoic Wyman Formation, the upper most Proterozoic Reed Dolomite (Hines Tongue Member), and clastic strata of the Lower Cambrian Deep Springs, Campito (Montenegro Member), Poleta, and Harkless formations refl ect ultimate derivation from the adjacent 1.7-pre-1.8 Ga Mojavia terrane and/or 1.7-1.8 Ga Yavapai continental basement, with subsidiary sources in both the ca. 1.4 Ga Yavapai-Mazatzal anorogenic granitoids and the >2.5 Ga North American craton, and a small proportion of 1.0-1.3 Ga grains, most likely reworked from Grenville clastic wedge deposits. Detrital zircon age spectra from the Lower Cambrian Andrews Mountain Member of the Campito Formation are unique in comparison with the remainder of the studied section, containing a major age peak centered at ca. 1.1 Ga and a subsidiary Lower Cambrian age peak, permitting calculation of a ca. 527 ± 12 (2σ) Ma maximum depositional age. These features, in addition to abundant detrital magnetite-ilmenite grains, refl ect a distal source for these rocks, most likely from the ca. 1.1 Ga Pikes Peak batholith and/or the Midcontinent rift and ca. 0.53 Ga bimodal intrusions of the Oklahoma-Colorado aulacogen. In terms of zircon age distribution, allochthonous metamorphic pendants in the Snow Lake terrane of the central Sierra Nevada batholith are most similar to those of stratigraphically equivalent units in the Death Valley region and, to lesser degrees, the White-Inyo section, and the Mojave Desert region. Given the similarity and relative proximity of Death Valley facies assemblages to the Snow Lake terrane, we suggest that the latter was not transported northward from the Mojave Desert region and instead represents footwall assemblages of a late Early to early Middle Jurassic lowangle normal fault system, probably along the outer transform-truncated margin of the Last Chance thrust stack. This model implies a few tens of kilometers of offset, in contrast to the hundreds of kilometers required by the Mojave-Snow Lake fault hypothesis.

A mass balance and isostasy model: Exploring the interplay between magmatism, deformation and surface erosion in continental arcs using central Sierra Nevada as a case study

“…Although field studies of Mesozoic deformation show that arc-perpendicular shortening is important at midcrustal levels [e.g., Tobisch et al, 2000;, periods of upper crustal extension and thinning are not excluded. Early to Middle Jurassic crustal extension events are documented [e.g., Busby-Spera, 1988; Dunne and Walker, 2004;Chapman et al, 2015b]. Our simulation results also suggest a significant phase of crustal thickening and elevation increase from Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous (a period of about 40 Myr long), during which crustal thickness increases from $25 km to 67 km and elevation from <0 km to 5.2 km at ca.…”

Provenance of Pennsylvanian–Permian sedimentary rocks associated with the Ancestral Rocky Mountains orogeny in southwestern Laurentia: Implications for continental-scale Laurentian sediment transport systems

“…1.85 Ga are uncommon in late Paleozoic Laurentian samples presented in this study, and these ages could represent either sediment originating (1) within Ellesmerian orogen, in which these ages are abundant (Fig. 13), (2) from accreted rocks to the northwest of these basins such as the Antler and/or Klamath terranes (Gehrels, 2000;Grove et al, 2008;LaMaskin, 2012;Beranek et al, 2016), (3) from recycling of nearby lower Paleozoic passive margin rocks (Chapman et al, 2015), or (4) from erosion of the 1.8 Ga Mohave province (Whitmeyer and Karlstrom, 2007). A low abundance of 1.6-1.8 Ga grains in most of these samples is interpreted to indicate that material eroded from Ancestral Rocky Mountain basement uplifts was not a major contributor to the sediment budgets of the Keeler and Lone Pine systems.…”

Detrital-zircon geochronology of the Sawtooth metamorphic complex, Idaho: Evidence for metamorphosed lower Paleozoic shelf strata within the Idaho batholith

“…Lower Cambrian and Middle Ordovician quartzites from the passive mar gin of western Laurentia in Nevada, Utah, and California commonly show age spectra dominated (>99%) by Mesoproterozoic and older detrital zircons Stewart et al, 2001;Baar, 2009;Lawton et al, 2010;Workman, 2012;Gehrels and Pecha, 2014;Yonkee et al, 2014;Chapman et al, 2015). The youngest detrital zircons in some of these Cordilleran Cam brian-Ordovician strata are hundreds of millions of years older than the in ferred depositional age (e.g., Figs.…”

“…This approach of correlating detritalzircon age spectra is commonly used in supercontinent reconstructions (e.g., Ireland et al, 1998;Rainbird et al, 1998;Berry et al, 2001). (Ross and Villeneuve, 2003;Stewart et al, 2010); (2) the Neo protero zoic Windermere Supergroup (Ross and Parrish, 1991;Gehrels and Ross, 1998); (3) the Syringa metasedimentary rocks (Lewis et al, 2007; (4) the Neoproterozoic to Ordovician Cordilleran passive margin strata (quartz ites of Caddy Canyon, Mutual Formation, Prospect Mountain, Eureka, and their equiva lents in California, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho; Gehrels and Dickin son, 1995;Stewart et al, 2001;Baar, 2009;Lawton et al, 2010;Workman, 2012;Gehrels and Pecha, 2014;Yonkee et al, 2014;Chapman et al, 2015); and (5) the Middle Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian strata (sandstones of the Wood River Formation) in southcentral Idaho . The sample locations for these data are shown in Figure 1A.…”

“…10C) from the western margin of Laurentia, including the Wood Canyon Formation (Stewart et al, 2001;Wooden et al, 2013) and Campito Formation (Chapman et al, 2015) from southern California, the Prospect Mountain Quartzite from central Utah (Law ton et al, 2010;Yonkee et al, 2014), the Geertsen Canyon Quartzite from north ern Utah (Gehrels and Pecha, 2014;Yonkee et al, 2014), and the Camelback Mountain Quartzite from southeastern Idaho (Yonkee et al, 2014). The large component of Grenvilleage zircons in the SMC samples is observed in the age spectrum of the Cambrian Campito Formation (Stewart et al, 2001;Chapman et al, 2015) and that of the Osgood Mountain Quartzites formed from latest Neoproterozoic through earliest Cambrian time (Linde et al, 2014). This cor relation of the SMC Group B metapsammites with those Cordilleran Cambrian quartzites is supported by the results of the similarity test ( Supplemental Table 1C [see footnote 1]) and is consistent with the presence of three Cambrian (496 ± 10 Ma,529 ± 18 Ma,542 ± 12 Ma,2s) and several Neoproterozoic zircons in these samples.…”