Upper plate and lower plate settings within subduction zones have distinct geological signatures. Identifying and discriminating between these settings is crucial to the study of accretionary orogens. We apply this distinction to the Northern Cordillera in Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska, and focus on the identification of upper plate and lower plate domains during the late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic evolution of the allochthonous Yukon-Tanana terrane, the west Laurentian margin and the intervening Slide Mountain Ocean. We present new data from the Dunite Peak ophiolite in south-central Yukon, previously interpreted as ocean plate stratigraphy that was obducted from the subducting Slide Mountain Ocean (i.e. lower plate). Whole-rock geochemical and Sm-Nd isotopic analyses, and U-Pb zircon geochronology indicate that the Dunite Peak ophiolite formed in an intra-oceanic suprasubduction zone setting (i.e. upper plate) with 2 magmatism at 265 ± 4 Ma. We propose that the Dunite Peak ophiolite correlates with other mid-Permian suprasubduction zone ophiolites of the Slide Mountain terrane, collectively defining the previously unrecognized mid-Permian Dunite Peak intra-oceanic arc. This intra-oceanic arc was active from ~280 to 260 Ma, located within the Slide Mountain Ocean, between the Yukon-Tanana terrane and west Laurentia. Existence of this arc is incompatible with previous models which proposed that accretion of the Yukon-Tanana terrane to Laurentia was facilitated by Permian subduction of Slide Mountain Ocean beneath the Yukon-Tanana terrane. Our results, combined with existing datasets suggest that during the mid-to late Permian, Yukon-Tanana terrane subducted eastward beneath the Dunite Peak intra-oceanic arc. Subsequent collision and accretion of the Yukon-Tanana-Dunite Peak composite terrane with Laurentia must have occurred after the Middle Triassic.
Triassic rocks of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) have previously been interpreted as being deposited on the passive margin of North America. Recent detrital zircon provenance studies on equivalent Triassic rocks in the Yukon have suggested that these rocks were in part derived from the pericratonic Yukon–Tanana terrane and were deposited in a foreland basin related to the Late Permian Klondike orogeny. Detrital zircons within a number of samples collected from Triassic sediments of the WCSB throughout northeastern British Columbia and western Alberta suggest that the bulk of the sediment was derived from recycled sediments of the miogeocline along western North America, with a smaller but significant proportion coming from the Innuitian orogenic wedge in the Arctic and from local plutonic and volcanic rocks. There is also evidence of sediment being derived from the Yukon–Tanana terrane, supporting the model of terrane accretion occurring prior to the Triassic. The age distribution of detrital zircons from the WCSB in British Columbia is similar to those of the Selwyn and Earn sub-basins in the Yukon and is in agreement with previous observations that sediment deposited along the margin of North America during the Triassic was derived from similar source areas. Together these findings support the model of deposition within a foreland basin, similar to the one inferred in the Yukon. Only a small proportion of zircon derived from the Yukon–Tanana terrane is present within Triassic strata in northeastern British Columbia, which may be due to post-Triassic erosion of the rocks containing these zircons.
Eight new species of the conodontNeogondolellaare described from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) of northeastern British Columbia. The subtlety of morphological variation in this conodont genus has hampered biostratigraphical correlation, but large, often independently dated collections have enabled the description ofN.cuneiforme,N.curva,N.hastata,N.dilacerata,N.indicta,N.panlaurentia,N.tenera, andN.vellicatan. spp. Several of these species are widespread, as specimens ofN.curva,N.hastata,N.indicta,N.panlaurentia,N.tenera, andN.vellicataare found in contemporary collections from Nevada, whereasN.panlaurentiahas also been recovered from the Canadian Arctic. This distribution promises to significantly improve correlation among Anisian sections in North America.
New isotopic ages have been obtained from euhedral, first-cycle zircon grains recovered from Rhaetian strata preserved at the Black Bear Ridge section in northeastern British Columbia. Two statistically significant populations are present: an older population ca. 224 Ma, and a dominant younger population ca. 205 Ma. The younger population includes a group of grains with a weighted average 206 Pb/ 238 U age of 205.2 ± 0.9 Ma, which is interpreted to represent the maximum depositional age of the sediment. Potential sources for the two populations are found in the Quesnel terrane in central British Columbia, implying close proximity between this terrane and the autoch thonous North American margin during the Late Triassic. This is supported by geochemical and structural evidence. The implication that the Quesnel terrane was close to its present-day latitude during the Late Triassic is in conflict with older estimates of paleolatitude based on paleomagnetic and paleontological evidence. The age of 205.2 ± 0.9 Ma obtained from the youngest population of zircons is also consistent with recently published estimates for the age of the Norian-Rhaetian boundary.
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