1Rapid maturation and stabilisation of middle Archaean continental crust: the Akia terrane, southern West
New ion probe U-Pb zircon analyses of twelve samples of grey orthogneiss, granite and post-kinematic diorite from the Akia terrane, southern West Greenland, supported by Sm-Nd isotope geochemistry, document its middle Archaean accretional history and provide new evidence about the location of its no...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.525.1296 http://2dgf.dk/xpdf/bull47-1-1-27.pdf |
| Summary: | New ion probe U-Pb zircon analyses of twelve samples of grey orthogneiss, granite and post-kinematic diorite from the Akia terrane, southern West Greenland, supported by Sm-Nd isotope geochemistry, document its middle Archaean accretional history and provide new evidence about the location of its northern boundary. Zircon populations in grey gneiss and inherited zircons in granite show that magmatic accretion of new continental crust, dominated by intrusion of tonalite sheets in a convergent island arc setting, occurred between c. 3050 and 3000 Ma, around and within a c. 3220 Ma continental core. In the central part of the terrane, tonalite sheets were intercalated with older supracrustal rocks of oceanic affinity by intrusion, thrusting and folding during the Midterhøj and Smalledal deformation phases of Berthelsen (1960). Continued tonalite injection led to a thermal maximum with granulite facies conditions at c. 2980 Ma, dated by metamorphic zir-cons in grey gneiss. The metamorphic maximum was contemporaneous with upright, angular folds of the Pâkitsoq deformation phase. Within a few million years followed high-grade retrogression and intrusion of two large dome-shaped tonalite-granodiorite complexes, granites s.l. derived from remobilisation of grey gneiss, and post-kinematic diorite plugs. Whereas the relative chronology of these events is firmly established from field observations, zircons from the post-granulite facies |
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