The pre-Mesozoic metamorphic basement of Mexico, 1.5 billion years of crustal evolution

Paleomagnetism and Geochronology of the Early Cretaceous Dipilto Batholith (NW Nicaragua): Chortís Block Large Rotation With Respect to SW North America

“…The tectonic evolution and geological record of Mexico is a consequence of the complex geodynamics of the Pangea-NAM western margin from Paleozoic to recent time (Dickinson, 2009). Several reviews of Mexican tectono-stratigraphic terranes and complexes include Campa and Coney (1983), Keppie (2004), Ortega-Gutiérrez et al (2018), and Sedlock et al (1993). Since Early Cretaceous time the Chortís block has interacted with the following terranes and complexes ( Figure 1a): (1) Oaxaca, with Grenville (1300-990 Ma) basement consisting mainly of granulite facies (Solari et al, 2003, and others); (2) Mixteco, with a Paleozoic polymetamorphic basement, comprising diverse metamorphic and igneous suites of Ordovician to Early Triassic ages (Ortega-Gutiérrez et al, 1999; and others); (3) Juárez, consisting of a Mesozoic sequence of low to medium-grade phyllites and schist, and some MORB Andjić et al, 2018;Campa & Coney, 1983;Centeno-García, 2017;Fitz-Díaz et al, 2018;Flores et al, 2015;Sedlock et al, 1993).…”

“…The tectonic evolution and geological record of Mexico is a consequence of the complex geodynamics of the Pangea‐NAM western margin from Paleozoic to recent time (Dickinson, ). Several reviews of Mexican tectono‐stratigraphic terranes and complexes include Campa and Coney (), Keppie (), Ortega‐Gutiérrez et al (), and Sedlock et al (). Since Early Cretaceous time the Chortís block has interacted with the following terranes and complexes (Figure a): (1) Oaxaca, with Grenville (1300–990 Ma) basement consisting mainly of granulite facies (Solari et al, , and others); (2) Mixteco, with a Paleozoic polymetamorphic basement, comprising diverse metamorphic and igneous suites of Ordovician to Early Triassic ages (Ortega‐Gutiérrez et al, ; and others); (3) Juárez, consisting of a Mesozoic sequence of low to medium‐grade phyllites and schist, and some MORB intrusives (Pérez‐Gutiérrez et al, ); (4) Guerrero, comprising Mesozoic arc‐ and rift‐related marine and continental sedimentary and igneous sequences (Centeno‐García et al, ); (5) the Xolapa Complex, consisting of Mesozoic migmatitic orthogneisses and siliciclastic metasediments, intruded by Eocene‐Oligocene calc‐alkaline plutons (Corona‐Chávez et al, , and others); (6) the Vizcaíno and Magdalena‐Santa Margarita Islands comprising Mesozoic ophiolite, forearc and volcanic arc assemblages (Bonini & Baldwin, ; Kimbrough & Moore, , and others), and a suite of Cretaceous plutons, including Peninsular Batholith Range and Alisitos arc (Langenheim et al, ; Ortega‐Gutiérrez et al, ; Wetmore et al, , and others).…”

Pannotia to Pangaea: Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic Orogenic Cycles in the Circum-Atlantic Region: A celebration of the career of Damian Nance

“…The Late Paleozoic evolution of southern Mexico is critical to our understanding of late-Palaeozoicearly Mesozoic palaeogeography along the western margin of Pangaea during its amalgamation. Late Palaeozoic sequences have been variously interpreted to reflect subduction of Rheic Ocean lithosphere prior to Pangaea amalgamation (Ortega-Gutiérrez et al, 2018) or subduction of Proto-Pacific oceanic lithosphere after amalgamation (Keppie et al, 2008b;Nance et al, 2010). Juárez-Zúñiga et al (2020) provide new petrographic and U-Pb-Hf (zircon) analyses of felsic to intermediate volcanic pebbles in a conglomerate from the Matzitzi Formation, whose provenance constrains this palaeogeography (Centeno-García et al, 2009).…”

Volume 1

“…The zircon U-Pb geochronologic database for portions of the Putumayo Orogen identified to date in NW South America is summarized in Table 1. Note that, for the sake of brevity, Table 1 does not include the available geochronology from Oaxaquia; for this, the interested reader is pointed to the recent review of Ortega-Gutiérrez et al (2018) and references therein. In chronologic order, the dataset presented here was compiled from the works of , , Baquero et al (2015), , Urbani et al (2015), and van der .…”

“…Thus, in an attempt to minimize the effects that the high-grade metamorphic overprint would have on the detrital-age probability density function, the Oaxaquia results shown in Figure 6 were filtered to exclude all spots which are younger than, or overlap within 2σ uncertainty, the metamorphic age of ca. 985 ± 10 Ma that is representative of Oaxaquian granulites (Ortega-Gutiérrez et al, 2018). Note, however, that this filtering is unlikely to remove all 'mixed' spot analyses, and that any inadvertent ablation mixtures would systematically bias the 207 Pb/ 206 Pb dates of individual spots/grains towards younger apparent dates.…”