Constraints on ages of Taconian and Acadian deformation from zircon evaporation ages of felsic plutons from western Massachusetts

Conference · Mon Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1993 · Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States)

OSTI ID:5707808

Williamson, B F; Karabinos, P ^[1]

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1. Williams Coll., Williamstown, MA (United States). Dept. of Geology

New dates on three felsic plutons constrain the age of Taconian and Acadian deformation in western Massachusetts. The tonalitic Hallockville Pond Gneiss intrudes the Moretown Formation of the Rowe-Hawley belt and shows deformation comparable in degree and orientation to that of the surrounding rocks. The Middlefield Granite, a quartz monzonite, intrudes the Rowe and Moretown Formations at their contact. The Williamsburg Granodiorite, of minimum-melt composition, intrudes Silurian and Devonian formations of the Connecticut Valley Synclinorium, east of the Row-Hawley belt, and contains no obvious deformation fabric. [sup 207]Pb/[sup 206]Pb single-grain zircon evaporation ages for these plutons are as follows: the Hallockville Pond Gneiss, 484 [plus minus] 7 Ma; the Middlefield Granite, 447 [plus minus] 3 Ma (weighted average of 4 grains); and the Williamsburg Granodiorite, 373 [plus minus] 5 Ma (weighted average of 3 grains). The Moretown Formation, presently correlated with the Middle Ordovician Beauceville Formation in Quebec, must be older than 484 Ma (Early Ordovician), the age of the intruding Hallockville Pond Gneiss, which might be related to rocks in the proposed Shelburne Falls arc of similar age (Karabinos and Tucker, 1992). Field relations and the age of the Middlefield Granite show that if the Rowe-Moretown contact is a fault, one interpretation suggested by Stanley and Hatch (1988) and advocated by Ratcliffe et al. (1992), then Taconian thrusting in this area ended by 447 Ma because the pluton is not offset by faults. The 373 Ma age of the unfoliated Williamsburg Granodiorite, together with a U-Pb zircon age on a strongly deformed sill in the Granville dome of 376 [plus minus] 4 Ma, tightly constrains the timing of the main phase of Acadian deformation in western Massachusetts.

• OSTI ID: 5707808
• Report Number(s): CONF-9303211--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Journal Volume: 25:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580000* -- Geosciences
AGE ESTIMATION
DEFORMATION
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DEVONIAN PERIOD
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
GNEISSES
GRANITES
IGNEOUS ROCKS
ISOTOPE DATING
MASSACHUSETTS
METAMORPHIC ROCKS
MINERALS
NORTH AMERICA
ORDOVICIAN PERIOD
PALEOZOIC ERA
PETROLOGY
PLUTONIC ROCKS
ROCKS
SILICATE MINERALS
USA
ZIRCON