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Paleomagnetic data from the Insular superterrane and related terranes in the western Canadian and northern US Cordillera argue for large-magnitude (~4000 km), northward translations along the western margin of the North American Cordillera in the Late Cretaceous (the Baja-BC hypothesis). This model postulates that initial collision of the Insular superterrane occurred in southern California and/or northern Baja Mexico prior to dextral translation along the western North American margin from 85-55 Ma. A major unresolved problem with the Baja-BC hypothesis is that faults that could have accommodated large-magnitude translation are missing or obscured by later Cenozoic faulting and/or sedimentary cover. Here, we investigate the deformation record of Late Cretaceous ductile shear zones in southern California with the goal of understanding the timing and kinematics of deformation at this time. We focus on the Alamo Mountain and Piru Creek shear zones, located within the central Transverse Ranges. We report new field observations and twenty-one U-Pb LA-ICPMS zircon ages from deformed and undeformed host rocks and dikes with the goal of documenting the timing of deformation. Our data show that the Alamo Mountain and Piru Creek shear zones were active at ~76-72 Ma and possibly included an earlier phase of deformation. Both shear zones record sinistral strike-slip to sinistral-normal motion in their present-day orientations. When Cenozoic block rotations are restored, we find that the Alamo Mountain and Piru Creek shear zones originated as NNW-SSE striking, moderately ENE dipping shear zones that formed at mid-crustal conditions (500-600C and 4 kbars). Structural analysis of the shear zones indicates that the dominant component of motion was sinistral strike-slip and that the dip-slip component of motion was minor. The timing and kinematics of deformation in the Alamo Mountain and Piru Creek shear zones are similar to other Late Cretaceous shear zones in the Southern California Batholith. When palinspastic reconstructions are considered, these shear zones comprise a regionally extensive shear zone system over 200 km long. The presence of this regionally extensive, sinistral shear zone system and the absence of dextral shear zones requires reevaluation of the Baja-BC hypothesis in southern California during the Late Cretaceous.
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Evidence for regionally continuous Early Cretaceous sinistral shear zones along the western flank of the Coast Mountains, coastal British Columbia, Canada
Abstract The plate-boundary conditions of the Mesozoic North American Cordillera remain poorly constrained, but most studies support large (>800 km) southward motion of the Insular and Intermontane superterranes during Jurassic–Cretaceous time. An implicit feature in these models of large coastwise displacements is the presence of one or more continentalscale sinistral strike-slip faults that could have dismembered and displaced terrane fragments southward along the western margin of North America prior to the onset of mid-Cretaceous shortening and dextral strike-slip faulting. In this study, we documented a system of sinistral intra-arc shear zones within the Insular superterrane that may have accommodated large southward motion. Employment of a new large-n igneous zircon U-Pb method more than doubled the precision of measurements obtained by laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (from ~1% to 0.5%) and allowed us to demonstrate the close temporal-spatial relationship between magmatism and deformation by dating comagmatic crosscutting phases. Crystallization ages of pre-, syn-, and postkinematic intrusions show that the intra-arc shear zones record an Early Cretaceous phase of sinistral oblique convergence that terminated between 107 and 101 Ma. Shear zone cessation coincided with: (1) collapse of the Gravina basin, (2) development of a single voluminous arc that stitched the Insular and Intermontane superterranes together, and (3) initiation of eastwest contractional deformation throughout the Coast Mountains. We interpret these concurrent tectono-magmatic events to mark a shift in plate kinematics from a sinistral-oblique system involving separate terranes and intervening ocean basins to a strongly convergent two-plate margin involving a single oceanic plate and the newly assembled western margin of North America.
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- PAR ID:
- 10400851
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geosphere
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1553-040X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 139 to 162
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The Late Cretaceous arc flare-up event from 90 to 70 in the Transverse Ranges of the Southern California Batholith was temporally and spatially associated with the development of a large contractional shear system that includes discontinuous segments of the Tumamait shear zone (Mt. Pinos), the Alamo Mountain-Piru Creek shear zone, the Black Belt shear zone (Cucamonga terrane), and the Eastern Peninsular Ranges shear zone. The age and kinematics of these shear zones inform the tectonic setting of the continental arc in Southern California during the beginning of the Laramide orogeny and during postulated large-magnitude dextral translations along the margin (the Baja-BC hypothesis). The Mt. Pinos sector of the Southern California Batholith preserves the intra-arc, transpressional Tumamait shear zone and the ductile-to-brittle Sawmill thrust, both of which record Late Cretaceous deformation. The batholith and shear zone are hosted by Mesoproterozoic biotite gneisses and migmatites (1750-1760 Ma), Neoproterozoic biotite granites (660 Ma), Permo-Triassic granitic gneisses and amphibolite (260-250 Ma), and Late Jurassic granites and gneisses (160-140 Ma). Late Cretaceous rocks are variably deformed and include porphyritic granodiorite gneisses and peraluminous granites emplaced at 86 to 70 Ma. Mylonites of the Tumamait shear zone affect all rocks in the area and generally strike NW-SE and dip moderately to the NE and SW. Mineral stretching lineations plunge shallowly to the SE. Mylonitic fabrics are folded into a regional, SE-plunging synform that results in alternating bands of sinistral and dextral shear fabrics. Syn-kinematic titanites from 5 mylonitic samples give a 720-700°C temperature range, and lower-intercept 206Pb/238U dates of 77.0 Ma, 76.8 Ma, 75.1 Ma, 74.2 Ma, and 74.0 Ma. Subsequent folding of the mylonite is linked to N-directed motion on the Sawmill thrust. 40Ar-39Ar thermochronology ages of 67-66 Ma and onlapping Eocene shales indicate Latest Cretaceous activity on the thrust, prior to Eocene arc collapse. Based on the age of the Tumamait shear zone, we speculate that it is related to sinistral deformation observed in the nearby Alamo Mountain-Piru Creek and the Black Belt shear zones. We attribute the younger Sawmill thrust to collision of the Hess oceanic plateau with the Southern California Batholith after 70 Ma.more » « less
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02502.1
