The Twillingate Granite and nearby Volcanic Groups: An Island Arc Complex In Northeast Newfoundland

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Main Authors: Williams, Harold, Payne, John G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1975
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Twillingate; Herring Neck; Sleepy Cove; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e75-090; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e75-090

The Twillingate Granite cuts mafic pillow lavas and silicic fragmental volcanic rocks of the Sleepy Cove Group. The granitic rocks are soda-rich and they vary from intensely foliated and mylonitic in the south to mildly foliated and massive toward the north. The Sleepy Cove volcanic rocks show similar structural and metamorphic variations from lineated amphibolitic pillow lavas, to elongated pillows of greenschist metamorphic grade, to slightly metamorphosed and relatively undeformed pillow lavas.The collective terrane occupied by the Twillingate Granite and Sleepy Cove Group is virtually surrounded by intrusive mafic dikes that are integral and coeval parts of the Moretons Harbour and Herring Neck Groups. The dikes decrease in abundance away from the contacts of the collective Twillingate – Sleepy Cove terrane. The essentially intrusive contact is modified by faults and locally, the profuse dike swarms are absent.Regional relationships, thickness, lithofacies, and petrochemistry all indicate that the Moretons Harbour and Herring Neck Groups relate to an episode of Lower Ordovician island arc volcanism. Intrusive relationships and contrasts in structural style and metamorphic grade indicate that the Twillingate Granite and Sleepy Cove Group are older. These older rocks are also interpreted as island arc derivatives, so that in their present position, they may represent the remnant of a partly deformed and metamorphosed older arc that is now bordered by relatively undeformed Lower Ordovician volcanic rocks.Similar relationships within transported sequences of western Newfoundland suggest a central Newfoundland island arc provenance for the transported Little Port Complex.