Age and tectonic setting of the Mesozoic McCoy Mountains Formation in western Arizona, USA

Spencer, J.E.; Richard, S.M.; Gehrels, George E.; Gleason, James D.; Dickinson, William R.

doi:10.1130/b30206.1

Cited by 33 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…This is in line with statements made by Dickinson and Gehrels (2008). The results suggest that the Mogollon highlands were farther north than suggested in the paleogeographic maps of Currie (1997) and Turner and Peterson (2004), but agree with the extent mapped by Spencer et al (2011). The results also suggest that the western margin of the basin indicated by Turner and Peterson (2004) is too far to the east.…”

Section: Results and Geological Implicationssupporting

confidence: 61%

Statistical Estimation of the Position of An Apex: Application To the Geological Record

Owen¹,

Jupp²,

Nichols³

et al. 2015

Journal of Sedimentary Research

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Knowing the position of an apex of a distributive depositional system can provide important spatial constraints on paleogeographic reconstructions, and thus can greatly help facies predictions, at both a system and a basin scale. To date, predicting the position of an apex of a sedimentary system is often limited to generalized statements based on facies mapping and qualitative analyses of paleocurrent readings. This paper presents a user-friendly quantitative methodology based on the von Mises distribution and uses the method of maximum likelihood to obtain an estimated apex and associated confidence regions for a dataset. The methodology presented has been applied to two modern distributive fluvial systems (DFSs), the Taquari DFS, situated in southwestern Brazil, and the Gilbert DFS, situated in northwestern Queensland, Australia. The position of each apex is known for the two systems, thus allowing the accuracy of the methodology to be tested. A range of datasets, within which the amount and spatial distribution of localities were selected independently, was analyzed. The predicted apices came within encouraging proximity of the true apices, ranging in distance from 2.7 km to 40.3 km (1.6 to 23.4% of the total DFS length) away, with accuracy generally increasing with increasing dataset size and proximity to the apex. Data collected from the Late Jurassic Salt Wash DFS were also analyzed using the code. Results have helped to give better geographical constraints on the system and apex location as well as on the southern margin of the Morrison depositional basin. Although tested on modern and outcrop-based datasets from DFS, the methodology can be applied to any dataset, subsurface or surface, in which dispersion occurs from a point source, thus unlocking the potential for better paleogeographic constraint on a broad range of sedimentary environments such as deltas and submarine fans.

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Section: Results and Geological Implicationssupporting

confidence: 61%

Statistical Estimation of the Position of An Apex: Application To the Geological Record

Owen¹,

Jupp²,

Nichols³

et al. 2015

Journal of Sedimentary Research

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“…Grains of populations A (3250-1829 Ma), C (1326-937 Ma), and D (923-338 Ma) are found in several Pennsylvanian to Cretaceous basins of the western United States and northern Mexico, in particular, in the (1) Sevier fold-and-thrust belt and foreland basin system (Dickinson and Gehrels, 2008a;Druschke et al, 2011), (2) the Bisbee basin , (3) the McCoy basin (Barth et al, 2004;Spencer et al, 2011), and (4) the Marathon basin (Gleason et al, 2007), in addition to other various Precambrian to Cretaceous sedimentary units in the region Dickinson and Gehrels, 2003Spencer et al, 2011). Other potential, more distant, sources for these age populations include wall rocks of the Peninsular Range Batholith (Morgan et al, 2005;Grove et al, 2008;Alsleben et al, 2011), basement rocks in Wyoming (Chamberlain et al, 2003), and Paleo zoic arc terranes and alloch thons of Nevada , northern California, and Oregon (Gehrels et al, 2000, and references therein).…”

Section: Minor Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Provenance of the Paleocene-Eocene Wilcox Group, western Gulf of Mexico basin: Evidence for integrated drainage of the southern Laramide Rocky Mountains and Cordilleran arc

Mackey¹,

Horton²,

Milliken³

2012

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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Laramide basement blocks of the U.S. Rocky Mountain Province have long been considered the sediment source of the Paleocene-Eocene Wilcox Group, implying that large-scale progradation driven by Laramide uplift induced a transition from carbonate to clastic deposition in the Gulf of Mexico. Detrital zircon U-Pb age spectra from 10 samples collected from the Wilcox Group in south Texas reveal a complex grain assemblage with major age populations at ca. 1800-1300 Ma and 350-50 Ma and minor populations at 1300-950 Ma, 3250-1850 Ma, and 900-400 Ma. Modal data for Wilcox Group sand grain populations from the same region suggest a diverse provenance, including sources from the Cordilleran magmatic arc and subordinate reworked sedimentary rocks. Sediment was primarily derived from a mix of crystalline basement blocks in the U.S. southern Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico, the Cordilleran arc of western Mexico and the southwestern United States, and Mesozoic-Paleogene magmatic rocks of northern Mexico. Secondary sources include recycled strata from Sevier-Laramide basins in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Comparisons of detrital zircon U-Pb age spectra show that the Lower Wilcox subunit contains signifi cant magmatic arc-derived sediment, whereas the Upper Wilcox subunit is more enriched in basement and recycled sedimentary detritus. Therefore, the relatively quartzose composition of the bulk detrital assemblages throughout the Wilcox Group of south Texas is not an accurate refl ection of the range of volcanic and basement sources indicated by the associated U-Pb ages, suggesting signifi cant attrition of unstable grains during long-distance (>500-1000 km) transport.

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“…Deposition renewed in the Late Cretaceous with deformation in the east-west-trending Maria fold-andthrust belt along the northern margin of the McCoy Basin (Barth et al, 2004). Detrital zircon geochronologic data reported in this study were derived from a sandstone sample collected from the uppermost (siltstone) member of the McCoy Mountains Formation in the southern Dome Rock Mountains of western Arizona (Spencer et al, 2010) (locality 3 in Fig. 1); the member consists of siltstone, feldspathic sandstone, and minor conglomerate, and is stratigraphically above a tuff dated as 79 Ma (Tosdal and Stone, 1994).…”

Section: Geologic Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Earliest deposition in the basin was related to lithospheric extension during the Jurassic (Spencer et al, 2010). Deposition renewed in the Late Cretaceous with deformation in the east-west-trending Maria fold-andthrust belt along the northern margin of the McCoy Basin (Barth et al, 2004).…”

Section: Geologic Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paleogene California River: Evidence of Mojave-Uinta paleodrainage from U-Pb ages of detrital zircons

Davis

Dickinson

Gehrels

et al. 2010

Geology

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U-Pb age spectra of detrital zircons in samples from the Paleogene Colton Formation in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah and the Late Cretaceous McCoy Mountains Formation of southwestern Arizona (United States) are statistically indistinguishable. This fi nding refutes previous inferences that arkosic detritus of the Colton was derived from cratonic basement exposed by Laramide tectonism, and instead establishes the Cordilleran magmatic arc (which also provided sediment to the McCoy Mountains Formation) as the primary source. Given the existence of a north-south-trending drainage divide in eastern Nevada and the north-northeast direction of Laramide paleofl ow throughout Arizona and southern Utah, we infer that a large river system headed in the arc of the Mojave region fl owed northeast ~700 km to the Uinta Basin. Named after its source area, this Paleogene California River would have been equal in scale but opposite in direction to the modern Green River-Colorado River system, and the timing and causes of the subsequent drainage reversal are important constraints on the tectonic evolution of the Cordillera and the Colorado Plateau. INTRODUCTIONReconstructions of regional paleodrainage provide direct evidence of paleogeography and landscape evolution, in turn constraining tectonic models and informing isotopic analyses of past climate and altitude that are affected by the source of surface waters. In the North American Cordillera, Paleogene drainage patterns indicated by paleofl ow measurements and sedimentary provenance have been used to infer paleotopography and episodes of tectonic transition (e.g., Dickinson et al., 1986;Elston and Young, 1991;Goldstrand, 1994;Henry, 2008;Lawton, 1986;Surdam and Stanley, 1980;Young and McKee, 1978).Only recently have studies begun to unravel the areal extent of Laramide watersheds. Oxygen, strontium, and lead isotope records from Eocene Green River lake deposits have demonstrated that the lakes (in southern Wyoming, northwest Colorado, and northeast Utah; Fig. 1) received infl ows from a large northern drainage beginning ca. 50 to ca. 49 Ma, which tapped areas at least as distant as central Idaho Chetel et al., 2010;Davis et al., 2009). Thus, at times during the Paleogene, southward-fl owing rivers were integrated along >1000 km of the Cordillera from central Idaho to the Uinta Basin in Utah. In contrast, paleofl ow directions in southern Utah and Arizona were consistently to the north and northeast during the early Paleogene, and the source of rivers has been generally assumed to reside in the proximal hinterland west of the Sevier thrust belt (e.g., Elston and Young, 1991;Goldstrand, 1994;Lawton, 1986;Young and McKee, 1978). A notable exception is the deltaic Colton Formation of the southern Uinta Basin, the large volume (>10 3 km 3 ) and arkosic composition of which, along with the geometry of foreland structures, led some of us (Dickinson et al., 1986) to propose a more distal source in the exposed Precambrian basement of south-central on June 23, 2015 geolo...

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Age and tectonic setting of the Mesozoic McCoy Mountains Formation in western Arizona, USA

Cited by 33 publications

References 49 publications

Statistical Estimation of the Position of An Apex: Application To the Geological Record

Statistical Estimation of the Position of An Apex: Application To the Geological Record

Provenance of the Paleocene-Eocene Wilcox Group, western Gulf of Mexico basin: Evidence for integrated drainage of the southern Laramide Rocky Mountains and Cordilleran arc

The Paleogene California River: Evidence of Mojave-Uinta paleodrainage from U-Pb ages of detrital zircons

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