The source regions of dioritic and tonalitic magmas have been identified in a deep crustal section of the Famatinian arc (Sierras Pampeanas of western Argentina). The source zones of intermediate ...igneous rocks are located at the transition between a gabbro-dominated mafic unit and a tonalite-dominated intermediate unit. In the upper levels of the mafic unit mafic magmas intruded into metasedimentary wall-rocks, crystallized mainly as amphibole gabbronorite and caused the partial melting of the surrounding metasediments. In turn, the leucogranitic melts sourced from the metasedimentary rocks intruded into the newly crystallized but still hot mafic layers and catalysed the process of partial melting of the gabbroic plutonic rocks. The gabbroic rocks became mafic migmatites comprising amphibole-rich pyroxene-bearing mesosomes and leucotonalitic veins. Significantly, most of the mafic migmatites have isotopic compositions 87Sr/86Sr(T) < 0·7063 and εNd(T) = –0·94 to +2·24 similar to those of the gabbroic rocks and distinct from those of their complementary leucotonalitic veins 87Sr/86Sr(T) = 0·7075–0·7126 and εNd(T) < –2·65, providing evidence for the idea that melting of the mafic rocks was triggered by the intrusion of leucogranitic anatectic melts 87Sr/86Sr(T) = 0·715 and εNd(T) = –6·21. Mass-balance calculations show that the model reaction plagioclase + amphibole + leucogranitic melt → leucotonalitic melt + clinopyroxene ± orthopyroxene can better explain the partial melting of the gabbroic rocks. Based on field observations, we argue that the coalescence of leucotonalitic veins in the mafic migmatites led to breakdown of the solid matrix to form melt-dominated leucotonalitic pools. However, the leucotonalitic veins that crystallized before leaving behind the mafic migmatitic rock are chemically (elemental and isotopic) more evolved than the dioritic and tonalitic rocks. We envisage that once detached from their source region the leucotonalitic magmas were able to react, commingle and mix with entrained fragments of both mafic and metasedimentary rocks. This process gave rise to melts that became tonalitic and dioritic magmas. This study concludes that the generation of intermediate magmas is a multistage process with three critical steps: (1) influx and emplacement of hydrous mafic magmas into a deep crust containing metasedimentary country rocks; (2) physically and chemically coupled melting of mafic and metasedimentary rocks, leading to the formation of a leucotonalitic vein and dyke system that coalesces to form leucotonalitic or tonalitic magma bodies; (3) retrogression of the leucotonalitic magmas by partially assimilating entrained fragments of their mafic and metasedimentary precursors. The dimensions of the source zone seem to be insufficient to generate crustal-scale volumes of intermediate igneous rocks. However, the Famatinian paleo-arc crust would expose only those magma source zones that were still active during the tectonic closure of the arc. Ultimately, a time-integrated perspective indicates that early active source zones were cannibalized during the downward expansion of the plutonic bodies already dominated by intermediate plutonic rocks.
The Precordillera mafic-ultramafic belt (PMUB), located in central-western Argentina, comprises mafic and ultramafic bodies interlayered and/or in tectonic contact with marine siliciclastic units. ...Whole-rock, mineral geochemistry and Nd-Sr isotope analyses performed in magmatic rocks suggest a relatively different spatial and temporal evolution along the belt. The southern PMUB (south of 32°S) evolved as an intra-continental rifted margin with an enriched mid-ocean-ridge basalt (E-MORB) tholeiitic to alkaline magmatism, to a proto-ocean basin (the Cuyano proto-ocean) with tholeiitic normal-MORB geochemical signature. Based on neodymium model ages (TDM), the magmatic activity started during the late Neoproterozoic Era and continued into the early Palaeozoic Era. Instead, the northern PMUB (28-32°S) evolved as an intra-continental rifted margin with dominant tholeiitic E-MORB to continental flood basalt (CFB) magmatism during the early Palaeozoic Era. εNd values (+3.4 to +8.4), rare earth element trends and high-field-strength element systematics, together with an estimated potential mantle temperature of c. 50-100°C above ambient mantle, suggest the PMUB magmatism derived from an enriched mantle source related to the effect of a rising plume linked to the Iapetus Ocean opening. In particular, TDM estimations of 600-550 Ma agree with reported magmatism in central to southern Appalachians. The magmatism in the PMUB, and those registered in the Neoproterozoic Catoctin Formation and in the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen in the conjugated Laurentian margin, seem to be contemporaneous, sharing a similar plume-enriched mantle source. In this context, the E-MORB signature identified along the PMUB can be described as a plume-distal ridge tectonic setting over an extended margin.
Intraplate deformation has been described in several tectonic settings and recently in western central Argentina it has been proposed to explain the complex structural patterns developed between ...Early Jurassic and Cretaceous times along the Huincul deformation zone. We integrate new field data and detrital zircon ages of the exposed portion of the Huincul High that permit us to quantify the significance of this intraplate deformation in the relief generation. A stratigraphic and structural record of a Jurassic pulsed contractional deformation is derived from field surveys. It is documented through multiple unconformities and growth geometries linked to NE and E–W oriented growth structures extensively developed across the studied region. The pattern of zircon ages from the analyzed Late Jurassic successions indicates that they have a clear provenance from sources located along the Huincul deformation zone. The Tordillo Formation outcrops north of the Huincul High have a dominant provenance from the Andean Jurassic arc; while the Quebrada del Sapo Formation, south of the Huincul High, has a significant input from Late Triassic (220–200Ma) and Late Permian (280–260Ma) sources of the axial exposures of the Huincul High. Surface data, combined with detrital zircon ages proved to be a powerful method to confirm the presence of an ancient positive element developed within the southern Neuquén basin. Its genesis falls within the early history of the Huincul deformation zone, where several structural features indicate pulses of growth since Early Jurassic times prior to the main Andean contractional cycle that started in the Late Cretaceous. Therefore, these data document for the first time the importance of the early contractional phases in the relief construction in the southern Central Andes, reinforcing previous hypotheses about pre-Andean intraplate deformation concentrated along this extensive east–west oriented basement weakness zone.
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► Early Andean deformation is documented through unconformities and growth geometries. ► Zircon ages indicate provenance from sources located along the Huincul High. ► Data indicate a Jurassic positive element developed within the Neuquén Basin. ► They confirm intraplate deformation concentrated along the Huincul weakness zone.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The Famatina margin records an orogenic cycle of convergence, metamorphism, magmatism, and extension related to the accretion of the allochthonous Precordillera terrane. New structural, petrologic, ...and geochronologic data from the Loma de Las Chacras region demonstrate two distinct episodes of lower crustal migmatization. The first event preserves a counterclockwise pressure‐temperature path in kyanite‐K‐feldspar pelitic migmatites that resulted in lower crustal migmatization via muscovite dehydration melting at ∼12 kbar and 868°C at 461 ±1.7 Ma. The shape of the pressure temperature path and timing of metamorphism are similar to those of regional midcrustal granulites and suggest pervasive Ordovician migmatization throughout the Famatina margin. One‐dimensional thermal modeling coupled with regional isotopic data suggests Ordovician melts remained at temperatures above their solidus for 20–30 Ma following peak granulite facies metamorphism, throughout a time period marked by regional oblique convergence. The onset of synconvergent extension occurred only after regional migmatites cooled beneath their solidus and was synchronous with the cessation of Precordillera terrane accretion at ∼436 Ma. The second migmatite event was regionally localized and occurred at ∼700°C and 12 kbar between 411 and 407 Ma via vapor saturated melting of muscovite. Migmatization was synchronous with extension, exhumation, and strike‐slip deformation that likely resulted from a change in the plate boundary configuration related to the convergence and collision of the Chilenia terrane.
Key Points
Two migmatite events are preserved in the middle‐lower crust Famatina margin
Widespread melting did not result in orogenic collapse or extension
Extension was driven by plate boundary processes
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The Bajo Pequeño Shear Zone (BPSZ) is a lower‐crustal shear zone that records shortening and exhumation associated with the establishment of a new plate boundary, and its placement in a regional ...structural context suggests that local‐ to regional‐scale strain localization occurred with progressive deformation. A kilometer‐scale field and analytical cross section through the ~80 m thick BPSZ and its adjacent rocks indicates an early Devonian (405–400 Ma) phase of deformation on the western margin of Gondwanan continental crust. The earliest stages of the BPSZ, recorded by metamorphic and microstructural data, involved thrusting of a hotter orthogneiss over a relatively cool pelitic unit, which resulted in footwall garnet growth and reset footwall white mica 40Ar/39Ar ages in proximity to the shear zone. Later stages of BPSZ activity, as recorded by additional microstructures and quartz c‐axis opening angles, were characterized by strain localization to the center of the shear zone coincident with cooling and exhumation. These and other data suggest that significant regional tectonism persisted in the Famatinian orogenic system for 60–70 million years after one microplate collision (the Precordillera) but ceased 5–10 million years prior to another (Chilenia). A survey of other synchronous structures shows that strain was accommodated on progressively narrower structures with time, indicating a regional pattern of strain localization and broad thermal relaxation as the Precordillera collision evolved.
Key Points
BPSZ deformation is associated with the establishment of a new plate boundary
Strain localization in the BPSZ overprints an early inverted thermal gradient
Structures in the Famatinian system show strain localization over ~70 Myr
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
In central-western Argentina, an Early Paleozoic belt including mafic-ultramafic bodies and marine metasedimentary rocks occurs along the western margin of the Precordillera and in the eastern ...Frontal Cordillera. In this paper, we present the analysis of aeromagnetic data and its processing focused on mapping geological limits, structures and the relation at depth of the southern Precordillera. With this main objective were applied filtering algorithms, reduction to the pole, tilt derivative, analytic signal, and particularly, the use of Improved Logistic Function (IL) as a new method of edge detection, in combination with the inversion map obtained from the Magnetization Vector Inversion (MVI) method. The results allow us to describe at depth the main trend of the Southern Precordillera Mafic Ultramafic Belt as two separated bocks, one in Peñasco and another in Cerro (Co.) Cortaderas, passing through Cerro (Co.) Pozos with a possible NNE-SSW direction. The combination of this techniques also can be used as prospecting guide to Pb–Zn–Ag vein deposits and High sulfidation Au-Epitermal deposits.
•Determination of the Precordillera Mafic-Ultramafic Belt.•Linkage of maximum susceptibility, IL filter, outcrops of Mafic Ultramafic rocks and structural lineaments.•Magnetic Susceptibility 3D Model.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The basement of the Central Andes located in central-western Argentina (31º20′S - 69º22′W) is composed by the Cuyania and Chilenia terranes which were amalgamated to Gondwana in the Early-Mid ...Paleozoic. Between the Precordillera (Cuyania) and Frontal Cordillera (Chilenia) there are exposures of marine metasedimentary rocks associated with mafic rocks with an E-MORB chemical signature that represent the remnants of an extensional basin developed between both terranes. The stratigraphic features and the distribution of the Early-Mid Paleozoic units along the Western Precordillera were constrained by remote sensing techniques. This allowed us to identify two stages in the evolution of the sedimentary in-fill of the marine basin: an initial stage (Mid-Late Ordovician) marked by widespread extensional tectonics and a finning-upwards sequence interbedded with volcanic-plutonic mafic rocks; and a Late Ordovician?-Devonian where the sedimentation was characterized by the development of coarsening-upwards sequences with low participation of mafic rocks. Flattened parallel folds associated with pre-Andean thrusts have locally a top-to-the SW vergence. These pre-Andean (Late Devonian) structures are the relics of the Chanic orogen whose double vergence is the result of the control exerted by previous structures related to the ordovician rifting. This is constrained by the residual and regional magnetic anomalies which reflect an important correlation between deep and surface structures. We propose the inception of a subduction zone with an eastward polarity on the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana as the responsible for the compressive geotectonic framework that led to the closure of the Western Precordillera basin during the Late Devonian and the development of the Chanic thick-skinned-dominated orogen.
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•An asymmetric marine basin was developed between the Chilenia and Cuyania terranes.•The Chanic orogen was a thick-skinned-dominated orogen on the proto-pacific margin of Gondwana.•Geophysical data evidence the structural features of the Western Precordillera basement.•Andean structures are strongly controlled by inherited pre-Andean anisotropies.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
New U-Pb age determinations confirm earlier interpretations that the strongly deformed and metamorphosed mafic and intermediate igneous rocks of the Pie de Palo Complex represent a Mesoproterozoic ...fragment of suprasubduction zone oceanic crust.
A gabbroic pegmatite, interpreted to have formed during arc rifting or subsequent back-arc spreading, yielded a U-Pb age of 1204
+5.3/
–4.7 Ma. Highly tectonized ultramafic-mafic cumulates, occurring at the structural base of the Pie de Palo Complex and previously interpreted to represent remnants of a primitive arc phase, prior to rifting and back-arc spreading, could not be dated, but should be older than 1204 Ma if these inferences are correct. Tabular, sill-like bodies of leucogabbro/diorite and calc-alkaline tonalite/granodiorite sills yielded ages of 1174±43 and 1169
+8/
–7 Ma respectively. They may represent a younger, more evolved arc phase established after arc rifting or a younger, tectonically unrelated Mesoproterozoic arc. SHRIMP-analysis of metamorphic zircon rims with low Th/U ratios in VVL 110 gave a
206Pb/
238U age of 455±10 Ma, similar to lower intercept dates determined by discordia lines. Combined, these data indicate that the bulk of the amphibolite facies metamorphism present in the Pie de Palo Complex was generated during the Famatinian Orogeny.
Analysis of six single detrital zircon grains in a metasedimentary, quartzofeldspathic garnet-mica schist, tectonically interleaved with the igneous rocks of the Pie de Palo Complex, and tentatively correlated with the Difunta Correa metasedimentary sequence of other workers, yielded three age populations: 1150–1160 Ma; 1050–1080 Ma and 665 Ma, indicating that these sedimentary rocks were deposited during the late Neoproterozoic or Early Paleozoic. In addition, they confirm structural evidence that intercalation of rocks of the Pie de Palo Complex with isolated slivers of these sedimentary rocks is due to tectonic imbrications. These ages are also consistent with a Laurentian provenance, and earlier interpretations that these rocks once represented a sedimentary cover to the Pie de Palo Complex. The zircon population of 1050–1080 Ma could be derived from Grenville-age felsic plutons identified elsewhere in the Pie de Palo Complex by other workers. However, no evidence has been found in our samples for a Grenville-age orogenic event, invoked previously to explain accretion of the oceanic Pie de Palo Complex to Laurentia prior to the late Neoproterozoic/Early Cambrian rifting and drift of Cuyania.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The evolution of the western margin of South America comprised different tectonic regimes responsible of the present geological composition and structure of the Central Andes. Remote sensing, ...geological and geophysical data (aeromagnetic and seismological data) have been processed to understand the polyphase structural evolution of the Argentine Southern Precordillera. The outcrops exposed in the Sierra de Barreal (31°42′S-69°24′W) show evidences of a complex structural evolution related to the superposition of three orogenies from the Early Paleozoic to nowadays. The Chanic orogeny (Late Devonian) is characterized by two systems of non-coaxial ductile folds that affect Early Paleozoic rocks of the Ciénaga del Medio Group. The recognized rotation in the shortening direction (from NW-SE to ENE-WSW) is interpreted here as a result of a sinistral transpressive regime. The San Rafael orogeny (Early Permian) is represented by back-thrusts and blind faults associated to asymmetric folding that involves the deformation of Upper Carboniferous rocks (Majaditas Formation). Finally, the compressive Andean orogeny associated to the Pampean flat-slab subduction segment has been locally controlled by inherited pre-Andean anisotropies. This is evidenced by: 1-the structural style of western-southern Argentine Precordillera, which in the study area is represented by faulted blocks and top-to-west vergent back-thrusts; 2- NW-SE deflections and associated magnetic anomalies in the Argentine Precordillera fold-and-thrust belt; 3-neotectonic structures developed in a sinistral transpressive system; 4-the crustal seismicity associated to NW-SE trending structures with left-lateral component motion.
•Andean structures are strongly controlled by inherited pre-Andean anisotropies.•Chanic orogeny was locally under a sinistral transpression regime.•The crustal seismicity under the southern Precordillera is associated to NW-SE trending structures with left-lateral component motion.•Remote sensing show clearly the stratigraphy and structure of the Early Paleozoic rocks.•Magnetic anomaly map reveal the deep structural configuration of the Precordillera basement.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
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