Syn-collisional detrital zircon source evolution in the northern Moroccan Variscides

U–Pb detrital zircon geochronology and source provenance in the Moroccan Meseta (Variscan belt): A perspective from the Rehamna massif

“…This study indicates a modification through time of detrital sources feeding the continental shelf and the sedimentary basins in the current Rehamna area, which is compatible with the geodynamic model recently proposed for the Variscan belt (Martínez Catalán et al, 2021). The reconstructions based on existing paleomagnetic and geological data and models of Domeier and Torsvik (2014) and Matthews et al (2016) allow to visualize evolution of zircon sources as suggested in this work, in complementing and agreeing with the study of Accotto et al (2021a). Since the Ordovician, the northern Gondwana has evolved in a passive margin setting, suggesting that the detrital zircon populations deposited in Ordovician to Lower Devonian basins were entirely governed by recycling Gondwanan sources from the south and SE, represented either by remote exposed basements, and/or their sedimentary covers (Fig.…”

“…10b). This event occurred simultaneously with possible westward indentation of Avalonian promontory with the Variscan autochthon as discussed by Accotto et al (2021a). It was recently shown that the Mid-Variscan allochthon also contains sedimentary sequences with abundant [18] Mesoproterozoic zircon signature (Lindner et al, 2021) previously considered as typical for Avalonia (Mazur et al, 2010).…”

“…Anyway, the source of Mesoproterozoic zircons from the Variscan core and/or Avalonian indenter (Accotto et al, 2021a) remain questionable as the early Carboniferous paleogeographic position of both possible source areas remains poorly constrained. To the contrary, early Carboniferous zircon grains (sample R255-OZ) are argued to principally derived from early Carboniferous magmatism reported in the Moroccan Meseta (Kharbouch, 1994), although…”

“…These ideas were [3] recently tested by a new generation of detrital zircon studies mostly used to precise paleogeography and source areas in northern Gondwana (e.g. Pereira et al, 2014;Perez-Caseres et al, 2017;Letsch et al, 2017;El Houicha et al, 2018;Ghienne et al, 2018;Perez et al, 2019;Accotto et al, 2019Accotto et al, , 2020Accotto et al, , 2021aAccotto et al, ,b, 2022. So far examined detrital zircon populations concern sedimentary rocks deposited in various late Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic basins preserved in the Moroccan Meseta.…”

The Beni Bousera marbles, record of a Triassic-Early Jurassic hyperextended margin in the Alpujarrides-Sebtides units (Rif belt, Morocco)

“…Ma-old inherited zircons (Accotto et al, 2021). Neoproterozoic dates (~813 Ma and 584 Ma peaks) could reveal sources from the Pan-African belt of NW Africa and Western Europe (e.g., Soulaimani et al, 2018;Arenas et al, 2020).…”