Ophiolitic terranes of northern and central Alaska and their correlatives in Canada and northeastern Russia
- Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA (United States)
All of the major ophiolitic terranes (Angayucham, Tozitna, Innoko, Seventymile, and Goodnews terranes) in the northern and central Alaska belong to the Tethyan-type' of Moores (1982) and were obducted onto Paleozoic and Proterozoic continental and continental margin terranes in Mesozoic time. Tethyan-type' ophiolitic assemblages also occur in the Slide Mountain terrane in the Canadian Cordillera and extend from western Alaska into northeastern Russia. Although investigators have suggested widely different ages from their times of abduction onto the continent, these ophiolitic terranes display some remarkably similar features: (1) they consist of a stack of imbricated thrust slices dominated by ocean floor sediments, basalt, and high-level gabbro of late Paleozoic and Triassic age; (2) their mafic-ultramafic complexes generally are confined to the uppermost thrust sheets; (3) they lack the large tectonic melanges zones and younger accretionary flysch deposits associated with the ophiolitic terranes of southern Alaska and the Koryak region of northeastern Russia; (4) blueschist mineral assemblages occur in the lower part of these ophiolite terranes and (or) in the underlying continental terranes; and (5) they are bordered on their outboard' side by Mesozoic intraoceanic volcanic arc terranes. Recent geochemical and geologic studies of the mafic-ultramafic complexes in the Anagayucham and Tozitna terranes strongly suggest they were generated in a supra-subduction zone (SSZ) and that they are directly overlain by volcanic rocks of the Koyukuk terrane.
- OSTI ID:
- 5026489
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9305259--
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Vol. 25:5; ISSN GAAPBC; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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