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The Mineral King pendant is an ~15-km-long, northwest-striking assemblage of Permian to mid-Cretaceous metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks that form a steeply dipping wall-rock screen between large mid-Cretaceous plutons of the Sierra Nevada batholith (California, USA). Pendant rocks are generally well layered and characterized by northwest-striking, steeply dipping, layer-parallel cleavage and flattening foliation and steeply northwest-plunging stretching lineation. Northwest-elongate lithologic units with well-developed parallel layering and an absence of prominent faults or shear zones suggests a degree of stratigraphic continuity. However, U-Pb zircon dating of felsic metavolcanic and volcanosedimentary rocks across the pendant indicates a complex pattern of structurally interleaved units with ages ranging from 277 Ma to 101 Ma.

We utilize a compilation of 39 existing and new U-Pb zircon ages and four reported fossil localities to construct a revised geologic map of the Mineral King pendant that emphasizes age relationships rather than lithologic or stratigraphic correlations as in previous studies. We find that apparently coherent lithologic units are lensoidal and discontinuous and are cryptically interleaved at meter to kilometer scales. Along-strike facies changes and depositional unconformities combine with kilometer-scale tight folding and structural imbrication to create a complex map pattern with numerous discordant units.

Discrete faults or major shear zones are not readily apparent in the pendant, although such structures are necessary to produce the structural complications revealed by our new mapping and U-Pb dating. We interpret the Mineral King pendant to be structurally imbricated by a combination of kilometer-scale tight to isoclinal folding and cryptic faulting, accentuated by, and eventually obscured by, pervasive flattening and vertical stretching that preceded and accompanied emplacement of the bounding mid-Cretaceous plutons. Deformation in the Mineral King pendant represents a significant episode of pure-shear-dominated transpression between ca. 115 Ma and 98 Ma that adds to growing evidence for a major mid-Cretaceous transpressional orogenic event affecting the western U.S. Cordillera.

 

Garnet U‐Pb dating by laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry requires the development of matrix‐matched reference materials of variable chemistry and U mass fraction for accurate analysis. Additional calibration of existing primary reference materials is also justified based on the relatively poor calibration of some of the widely available primary reference materials that are currently utilised by the geoscience community. We present a micro sampling workflow combined with a refined ID‐TIMS methodology for the generation of high precision (~ 0.1%) U‐Pb dates from domains within garnet single crystals. Using this workflow, we calibrated two new natural andradite reference materials, the Jumbo andradite (And₉₉; 110.34 ± 0.03 (0.04) [0.13] Ma,n= 7, MSWD = 1.21) and the Tiptop andradite (And₈₇; 209.57 ± 0.11 (0.13) [0.26] Ma,n= 6, MSWD = 1.39). We also present additional calibration of the widely utilised Willsboro‐Lewis andradite primary reference material (And₉₀; 1024.7 ± 9.5 (9.6) [9.6] Ma (2s; overdispersed),n= 6). Wafers of the Jumbo and Tiptop andradite reference materials are available from the authors upon request.

 

Halogens (F, Cl, Br, I) are primary components of volcanic gas emissions and play an essential role in continental arc magmatic environments due to their solubility in fluids that generate metallic ore deposits. Despite their ubiquity, the behavior and budget of halogens in continental arc environments are poorly constrained. We investigated the plutonic and volcanic halogen budgets in intermediate-to-felsic igneous rocks (56–77 wt% SiO2) from the Sierra Nevada (California) - a Mesozoic continental arc where plutonic and volcanic outcrops can be correlated via their geographic, compositional, and geochronologic framework. We measured the halogen concentrations of bulk rock powders and their leachates via ion chromatography (F, Cl) and ICP-MS (Br, I). Halogen concentrations in our rock powders range between 107–727 μg/g F, 13–316 μg/g Cl, 2–323 ng/g Br, and 1–69 ng/g I. In contrast, leachates yielded 3–4 orders of magnitude less Cl and F, one order of magnitude less I, and similar amounts of Br compared to their corresponding bulk rocks. Preliminary data show no significant differences between volcanic and plutonic samples, suggesting that halogen concentrations in these rocks are insensitive to shallow fractionation. Although F and I exhibit no correlation with major element compositions, Cl and Br display negative trends with increasing SiO2 and K2O, and positive trends with increasing Fe2O3T, MnO, MgO, CaO, and TiO2, suggesting mafic minerals as important hosts of structurally bound halogens. Overall, Sierran plutonic rocks display low halogen contents (max. F, Cl = 727, 315 μg/g), consistent with biotite- and apatite-bearing granitoids reported in [1]. This work suggests that halogens do not preferentially enrich in shallow plutonic or volcanic portions of a continental arc system and that mafic mineral phases likely serve as primary reservoirs of these elements in intermediate-to-felsic igneous rocks. These hypotheses will be further investigated in future work through in-situ analysis of halogen concentrations in crystals. [1] Teiber, Marks, Wenzel, Siebel, Altherr & Markl (2014), Chemical Geology, vol. 374–375, pp. 92–109, doi: 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2014.03.006 

Ongoing investigations of halogen element (F, Cl, Br, I) concentrations in rocks and minerals in the Cretaceous Sierra Nevada Batholith, CA, aim to elucidate the spatio-temporal distribution and budget of these important elements in a “typical” continental convergent margin arc. Using a 3.0 kW Axios (Panalytical) wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF) equipped with a Ge 111 crystal to eliminate second order interferences on Cl-Kα lines, the Pomona College XRF lab has undertaken a campaign-style study of Cl in pressed powder samples of metamorphic and metavolcanic rocks in the Sierra. This work complements pyrohydrolysis + ion chromatography (IC) and ICP-MS analyses the research team is undertaking at the University of Texas – Austin. Both labs quadruply wash powders to eliminate Cl contributions from decrepitated fluid inclusions or grain boundary deposits. Intercomparison between the two labs show correlation (r2 = 0.98) between analyses of the same unknown samples, but decreased accuracy of XRF (>30% relative) below 30 µg/g. Despite lower precision, XRF characterization is a relatively rapid and less labor intensive means to identify key Cl variations among rock types and to select samples for full analysis of all four halogen elements by pyrohydrolysis + IC (Cl,F) and ICP-MS (Br,I). Results thus far indicate that Mg- to Al-rich pelites ranging in metamorphic grade from phyllite to migmatite vary widely in Cl: 50–500 µg/g; cordierite-biotite hornfels are typically elevated in Cl (200–400 µg/g) and other lithologies such as skarns and amphibolite are highly varied (50–600 µg/g Cl); a localized study of a high temperature (650–750°C) migmatites surrounding a gabbro-diorite complex shows low and relatively uniform Cl (100 ± 50 µg/g) in the migmatites. This fundings suggests that Cl may have been mobilized into melts during biotite dehydration melting in the migmatites. Metavolcanic rocks vary from 20 to over 2000 µg/g Cl, suggesting post-eruptive exchange with exogenous fluids during hydrothermal alteration and metamorphism. Metavolcanic packages in different pendants, screens and septa show some localized patterns in Cl concentration that are being explored further. 

The halogens (F, Cl, Br, I) are cycled into the crust via subduction. The presence of F and Cl in arc settings impacts melt viscosity, igneous phase relations, and thermodynamic properties of magma in the pluton-to-volcano system, whereas the systematics of Br and I in melt systems are poorly understood. Mass balance constraints show that more halogens are subducted with the slab than are released during volcanism and passive degassing, suggesting that a halogen sink may exist in the lithosphere. Despite this, the halogen content of the upper continental crust of arc systems and distribution of halogens between plutonic and volcanic arc rocks are poorly quantified. This study presents whole rock halogen (F, Cl, Br, I) concentrations for 22 unaltered, geospatially- and temporally-related Cretaceous granitoid, hypabyssal plutonic, and volcanic rocks from the Sierra Nevada, California. This sampling approach allows direct comparison of plutonic and volcanic counterparts to make inferences about the pluton-volcano relationship. Because F behaves more incompatibly than Cl, Br, and I, late-stage fluid exsolution from melts may concentrate F in plutonic rocks and Cl, Br, and I in volcanic rocks. These whole rock halogen data provide a first-order approximation of the proportion of subducted halogens that are stored in the upper continental crust, and where along the magmatic plumbing path they are stored with important implications for their role in primary igneous processes such as pluton crystallization and volcanism. Ultimately, the results from this work will serve as the preliminary data for a larger study, provide insight into the magnitude of the roles the halogens play during primary igneous processes, and add to the limited halogen data on arc rocks.