Geochemical tectonomagnetic discrimination of metamorphosed Middle Jurassic volcanic rocks, northern Sierra Nevada, California
- Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States). Dept. of Geosciences
- Texas Christian Univ., Fort Worth, TX (United States). Dept. of Geology
- Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Jurassic island-arc rocks in the Northern Sierra terrane (NSt) are represented by the Lower to Middle Jurassic Sailor Canyon Formation, consisting mainly of distal andesitic turgidities, and the overlying, Middle Jurassic Tuttle Lake Formation (TLF); both units were metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies during Mesozoic orogenesis. The TLF is a 1.6-km-thick sequence of submarine tuff-breccia debris-flow deposits intercalated with minor isolated-pillow breccias and intruded by numerous cogenetic hypabyssal intrusions that underwent extensive interaction with wet sediments in near-vent setting. Here the authors report the first geochemical studies of these regionally significant arc rocks. Pillow breccias, hypabyssal intrusions, and clasts within debris-flow deposits are predominantly basalt to basaltic andesite in composition and contain abundant plagioclase and clinopyroxene phenocrysts. Although cpx is intensely altered to actinolite, microprobe analyses were carried out on relict cpx cores. Compositions are typical of cpx from orogenic lavas and fall in combined calc-alkaline and tholeiitic fields on cpx discrimination diagrams. Most major elements show significant scatter on Harker and AFM variation diagrams, reflecting the metamorphic overprint. Immobile trace element contents (Ti, Cr, Y, Yb, Zr, Hf, Ta, Th) clearly indicate volcanic arc and calc-alkaline affinities when plotted on a variety of discrimination diagrams. REE patterns show LREE-enrichment typical of calc-alkaline lavas, commonly with small negative Eu anomalies consistent with plagioclase fractionation. The TLF shows marked petrologic and stratigraphic differences from broadly coeval Jurassic arc rocks exposed in the fault-bounded Kettle Rock sequence in the northeastern part of the NSt. This may reflect relatively rapid along-strike variations within the Jurassic arc, or that the Kettle Rock sequence and the TLF arc rocks have been brought into proximity by later faulting.
- OSTI ID:
- 5022282
- 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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