Petrochemistry of late Aphebian (~ 1.8 Ga) calc-alkaline diorites from the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, N.W.T., Canada

The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is a 2.5–1.7 Ga graben connected to the contemporaneous Wopmay Orogen on the margins of the Archean (2.5 Ga) Slave craton. It contains three major groups of sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The two earlier ones are cut by ~ 1.79 Ga diorites, which outcrop over 220 km...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Main Author: Badham, J. P. N.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1981
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e81-098
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e81-098
Description
Summary:The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is a 2.5–1.7 Ga graben connected to the contemporaneous Wopmay Orogen on the margins of the Archean (2.5 Ga) Slave craton. It contains three major groups of sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The two earlier ones are cut by ~ 1.79 Ga diorites, which outcrop over 220 km along the graben.The diorites were preferentially emplaced as laccoliths into a horizon of megabreccia thought to be the product of evaporite solution and collapse. The diorites are similar down the entire length of the East Arm. Main phases are usually plagioclase–hornblende poryphyritic, but younger and possibly high level phases contain biotite and quartz. The diorites are calc-alkaline but show no obvious chemical trends along the graben. They cannot be related directly to the proposed easterly dipping, late Aphebian subduction zone that generated the Wopmay Orogen.