Age and Geochemical Studies of the Snyder Breccia, Coastal Labrador

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Main Authors: Barton Jr., Jackson M., Barton, Erika S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1975
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Snyder; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e75-033; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e75-033

The Snyder breccia is composed of angular to subrounded xenoliths of migmatites and amphibolites in a very fine grained matrix. It is apparently intrusive into the metasediments of the Snyder Group exposed at Snyder Bay, Labrador. The Snyder Group unconformably overlies a migmatitic and amphibolitic basement complex and is intruded by the Kiglapait layered intrusion. K–Ar ages indicate that the basement complex is Archean in age (> 2600 m.y. old) and that the Kiglapait layered intrusion was emplaced prior to 1280 m.y. ago. Major and trace element analyses of the matrix of the Snyder breccia indicate that while it was originally of tonalitic composition, later it locally underwent alteration characterized by loss of sodium and strontium and gain of potassium, rubidium and barium. Rb–Sr isotopic analyses show that this alteration occurred about 1842 m.y. ago, most probably contemporaneously with emplacement of the breccia. The Snyder Group thus was deposited sometime between 2600 and 1842 m.y. ago and may be correlative with other Aphebian successions preserved on the North Atlantic Archean craton.