Detrital zircon age distribution from Devonian and Carboniferous sandstone in the Southern Variscan Fold-and-Thrust belt (Montagne Noire, French Massif Central), and their bearings on the Variscan belt evolution

Abstract

In the Southern French Massif Central, the Late Paleozoic sedimentary sequences of the Montagne Noire area provide clues to decipher the successive tectonic events that occurred during the evolution of the Variscan belt. Previous sedimentological studies already demonstrated that the siliciclastic deposits were supplied from the northern part of the Massif Central. In this study, detrital zircon provenance analysis has been investigated in Early Devonian (Lochkovian) conglomerate and sandstone, and in Carboniferous (Visean to Early Serpukhovian) sandstone from the recumbent folds and the foreland basin of the Variscan Southern Massif Central in Montagne Noire. The zircon grains from all of the samples yielded U-Pb age spectra ranging from Neoarchean to Late Paleozoic with

Pre-Variscan tectonic setting of the south margin of Armorica: Insights from detrital zircon ages distribution and Hf isotopic composition of the St-Georges-sur-Loire Unit (S. Armorican Massif, France)

“…11A), similar to the detrital zircon age distribution from the Late Paleozoic sedimentary sequences of the Montagne Noire area of French Massif Central, Corsica and West Avalonia (Ganderia and Notre Dame Subzone) ( Fig. 13; Henderson et al, 2016Henderson et al, , 2018Lin et al, 2016;Avigad et al, 2018). A secondary Paleoproterozoic age peak (with 27.4±1.7% of measured zircon grains) range from 2100 Ma to 1900 Ma (Lin et al, 2016).…”

“…Early Ordovician magmatism is also well preserved in the Armorican Massif (Auvray et al, 1980;Paquette et al, 1984Paquette et al, , 2017Janjou et al, 1998;Ballèvre et al, 2002Ballèvre et al, , 2012Galerne et al, 2006;Diot et al, 2007;Casas and Murphy, 2018), and the French Massif Central (e.g. Alexandrov et al, 2001;Melleton et al, 2010;Lin et al, 2016). In contrast, Late Paleozoic ages are rarely recorded in the detrital zircon populations (Figs.…”

“…13; Henderson et al, 2016Henderson et al, , 2018Lin et al, 2016;Avigad et al, 2018). A secondary Paleoproterozoic age peak (with 27.4±1.7% of measured zircon grains) range from 2100 Ma to 1900 Ma (Lin et al, 2016). Nearly 20% of the…”

“…Recycled zircons from Archean-Paleoproterozoic magmatic and metamorphic sources are documented in the Iberian massif (Fernández-Suárez et al, 2000, 2002, 2003Martínez Catalán et al, 2004, the French Massif Central (Lin et al, 2016), Cadomian metasedimentary rocks in Corsica (Avigad et al, 2018), and Central European Variscan…”

Detrital zircon U‐Pb ages and Hf isotopic constraints on the terrigenous sediments of the Western Alps and their paleogeographic implications

“…Such old ages are probably obtained from multiple recycled grains captured in younger igneous or sedimentary rocks [ Schaltegger , ; Böhm , ; Poller , ; Schaltegger and Gebauer , ; Bertrand et al ., ; Guillot et al ., ]. In comparison to zircon U‐Pb data from the Gondwana, the detritus with 800–1650 Ma zircons were provided by Proterozoic formations which received abundant Precambrian zircons from the West African Craton, the Amazonian or sub‐Saharan cratons [ Schaltegger , ; Böhm , ; Avigad et al ., ; Linnemann et al ., ; Lin et al ., ]. Since the discrimination of Precambrian age data remains unclear, these zircons could be derived from either the European plate or the Adriatic plate in the Cretaceous.…”