Geology and U-Pb geochronology of rocks of the Eokuk Uplift: a pre-2.8 Ga basement inlier in the northwestern Slave Province, Nunavut, Canada

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Main Authors: Emon, K A, Jackson, V A, Dunning, G R
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1999
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Nunavut; Canada; Coronation Gulf
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e98-094; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e98-094

Rocks of the Eokuk Uplift have been mapped in detail along the coast of Coronation Gulf and 10 key units have been dated by U-Pb analysis of zircon, monazite, and titanite. The combined data indicate that this inlier of the Slave Province has a >3.2 Ga crustal component, evidence of a granulite-grade orogenic event predating 2.8 Ga and a lack of evidence for any significant orogenic activity corresponding to the 2.7-2.6 Ga events common in the rest of the Slave Province. The oldest rocks in the study area are a succession of granitoid and supracrustal gneisses that have been metamorphosed to amphibolite to granulite facies. From field relationships, the oldest rock is a granodiorite to tonalite orthogneiss, with a zircon crystallization age of 3254 +13 -6 Ma. A granite gneiss, which may be a small felsic intrusion or an anatectic melt of the tonalite gneiss, yields a zircon age of 3216 +14 -13 Ma. A K-feldspar megacrystic monzogranite gneiss contains old, discordant, possibly inherited zircons with 207 Pb/ 206 Pb ages ranging from 3103 to 3039 Ma, together with coexisting 2879 ± 3 Ma zircon and monazite. These high-grade gneisses are intruded by two megacrystic granite plutons, dated at 2887 ± 2 and 2881 +4 -3 Ma. The absence of extensive recrystallization and complex structures in these plutons indicates that this igneous event postdated the high-grade metamorphism. An amphibolite-grade synplutonic metamorphic event is dated at ~2880 Ma by new monazite in the older gneiss units. A series of variably deformed mafic to felsic dykes and pegmatites intrude both the granites and gneisses and constrain the end of penetrative deformation in the area. Of these, a boudinaged diorite dyke, with a strong internal foliation parallel to the regional fabric, is dated at 2877 ± 3 Ma. A younger granodiorite dyke that crosscuts the regional fabric at a high angle and has only a weak internal foliation yields an age of 2864 +3 -9 Ma. An undeformed syenogranite pegmatite, which represents a suite that intrudes all other ...