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Abstract Low‐temperature thermochronometric data can reveal the long‐term evolution of erosion, uplift, and thrusting in fold‐thrust belts. We present results from central Idaho and southwestern Montana, where the close spatial overlap of the Sevier fold‐thrust belt and Laramide style, basement‐involved foreland uplifts signify a complex region with an unresolved, long‐term tectono‐thermal history. Inverse QTQt thermal history modeling of new zircon (U‐Th)/He (ZHe,n = 106), and apatite (U‐Th)/He dates (AHe,n = 43) collected from hanging walls of major thrusts systems along a central Idaho to southwestern Montana transect, and apatite fission track results from 6 basement samples, reveal regional thermal and spatial trends related to Sevier and Laramide orogenesis. Inverse modeling of foreland basement uplift samples suggest Phanerozoic exhumation initiated as early as ∼80 Ma and continued through the early Paleogene. Inverse modeling of interior Idaho fold‐thrust belt ZHe samples documents Early Cretaceous cooling at ∼125 Ma in the Lost River Range (western transect), and a younger cooling episode in the Lemhi Arch region (mid‐transect) at ∼90–80 Ma through the late Paleogene. This cooling in the Lemhi Arch temporally overlaps with cooling in southwestern Montana's basement‐cored uplifts, which we interpret as roughly synchronous exhumation related to contractional tectonics and post‐orogenic collapse. These data and models, integrated with independent timing constraints from foreland basin strata and previously published thermochronometric results, suggests that middle Cretaceous deformation of southwestern Montana's basement‐cored uplifts was low magnitude and preceded tectonism along the classic Arizona‐Wyoming Laramide “corridor.” In contrast, Late Cretaceous and Paleogene thrust‐related exhumation was more significant and largely complete by the Eocene. The basement‐involved deformation was contemporaneous with and younger than along‐strike Sevier belt thrusting in central Idaho.
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Proterozoic to Phanerozoic Tectonism in Southwestern Montana Basement Ranges Constrained by Low Temperature Thermochronometric Data
Abstract Crystalline basement rocks of southwestern Montana have been subjected to multiple tectonothermal events since ∼3.3 Ga: the Paleoproterozoic Big Sky/Great Falls orogeny, Mesoproterozoic extension associated with Belt‐Purcell basin formation, Neoproterozoic extension related to Rodinia rifting, and the late Phanerozoic Sevier‐Laramide orogeny. We investigated the long‐term (>1 Ga), low‐temperature (erosion/burial within 10 km of the surface) thermal histories of these tectonic events with zircon and apatite (U‐Th)/He thermochronology. Data were collected across nine sample localities (n = 55 zircon andn = 26 apatite aliquots) in the northern and southern Madison ranges, the Blacktail‐Snowcrest arch, and the Tobacco Root uplift. Our zircon (U‐Th)/He data show negative trends between single aliquot date and effective uranium (a radiation damage proxy), which we interpreted with a thermal history model that considers the damage‐He diffusivity relationship in zircon. Our model results for these basement ranges show substantial cooling from temperatures above 400°C to near surface conditions between 800 and 510 Ma. Subsequent Phanerozoic exhumation culminated by ∼75 Ma. Late Phanerozoic cooling is coincident with along‐strike Sevier belt thin‐skinned thrusting in southeastern Idaho, and older than exhumation in basement‐involved uplifts of the Wyoming Laramide province. Our long‐term, low‐temperature thermal record for these southwestern Montana basement ranges shows that: (a) these basement blocks have experienced multiple episodes of upper crustal exhumation and burial since Archean time, possibly influencing Phanerozoic thrust architecture and (b) the late Phanerozoic thick‐skinned thrusting recorded by these rocks is among the earliest thermochronologic records of Laramide basement‐involved shortening and was concomitant with Sevier belt thin‐skinned thrusting.
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- PAR ID:
- 10367064
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Tectonics
- Volume:
- 40
- Issue:
- 11
- ISSN:
- 0278-7407
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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