Structural and metamorphic evidence for the mechanism of exhumation of the schist belt, south-central Brooks Range, Alaska
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States). Dept. of Geologic Sciences
The mid to late mesozoic Brookian orogeny involved southward subduction underneath an island arc and subsequent burial of a passive continental margin. Field mapping, petrography, and geochronology of blueschist-bearing metasedimentary rocks in the Walker Lake region of the southern Brooks Range enables correlation of fabrics with crustal movements that are responsible for their burial and exhumation. Observed early ductile fabrics in the schist belt are consistent with north-vergent transport. These fabrics include (1) S[sub D] (dominant foliation), a south-dipping transposed crenulation cleavage which formed under blueschist facies conditions; (2) outcrop-scale north-vergent folds and an associated mesoscopic south-dipping crenulation cleavage, S[sub D+1]; (3) kilometer-scale gentle warps and north-vergent, open monoclinal folds. Small north-vergent folds (fabric 2) fold an earlier mineral stretching lineation associated with S[sub D]. The similarity of orientation of the three fabrics and their evolution in time from small and isoclinal to large and open suggests that they are the product of progressive deformation. S[sub D] is likely a burial fabric; later fabrics may be related to uplift along a regionally penetrative system of ductile, north-vergent south-dipping thrusts. A metamorphic overprint, dated at 105--110 Ma, increases to amphibolite facies toward the north and outlasts north-vergent fabrics. Retrograde helicitic albite is commonly rotated by later minor extensional crenulation cleavages. Discrete, narrow zones of ductile deformation in the southernmost schist belt, parallel to S[sub D] but postdating blueschist facies conditions, locally exhibit top-to-the-south sense of shear. This evidence suggest that north-vergent contraction continued during exhumation of the schist belt from deep to mid-crustal levels and that extension may have been responsible for exhumation from middle to shallow crustal levels.
- OSTI ID:
- 5770451
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-921058--
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Vol. 24:7; ISSN GAAPBC; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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