Geospeedometry and the metamorphic history of the Late Cretaceous Chiwaukum Schist, west central Washington state
- California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA (United States). Div. of Geological and Planetary Sciences
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
The Chiwaukum Schist on the NE side of the Late Cretaceous Mount Stuart batholith (MSB) shows evidence of a low-P contact metamorphism, followed by a higher-P amphibolite-facies regional metamorphism (Evans and Berti, 1986). Samples were collected from this contact zone in order to quantify the time-temperature history of the schist using the geospeedometry method of Lasaga (1983). Pseudomorphic textures and garnet-aluminosilicate-plagioclase (GASP) geobarometry within some samples show an increase in pressure during crystal growth, consistent with the interpretation of Evans and Berti (1986), that regional metamorphism followed intrusion of the MSB. Geospeedometry exploits the kinetics of diffusion associated with the thermo-barometric exchange reactions in order to determine the retrograde cooling history of a metamorphic rock. This technique was applied using Fe-Mg diffusion between garnet and biotite as defined by that geothermometer. Modeling results indicate that the region was exhumed and cooled from about 22 km and 610 C to about 8 km and 525 C, in a period of about 2.5 Myr. The average exhumation rate is 5.6 km/Myr. These results are consistent with existing isotopic ages, which indicate that the northeast MSB was intruded at about 95 Ma (K/Ar hornblende and U/Pb zircon) and that the Chiwaukum Schist cooled through temperatures of about 350 C at 86 to 83 Ma (K/Ar muscovite). Rapid unroofing appears to follow shortly after the climax of crustal thickening within the Cascade metamorphic core and may be related to erosional and/or tectonic denudation within a mountainous collisional orogen.
- OSTI ID:
- 5290162
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9305259-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 25:5; Conference: 89. annual meeting of the Cordilleran Section and the 46th annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Reno, NV (United States), 19-21 May 1993; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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