Detrital zircons from Cambrian rocks of western Laurentia define two episodes of Rodinian rift-related magmatism

Abstract

Many aspects of the disassembly of Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia remain poorly constrained. Current models for the breakup along western Laurentia (present coordinates) do not fully reconcile stratigraphic observations regarding the timing and mechanisms of continental rifting. Latest Neoproterozoic to Cambrian stratigraphic units exposed along the North American Cordillera from southwestern Canada to the southwestern United States contain Neoproterozoic and Cambrian zircons interpreted to be sourced from rift-related igneous rocks generated during the fragmentation of Rodinia. Two discrete magmatic episodes distinguished by a ca. 50 Myr period of apparent magmatic quiescence are identified using the detrital record: (1) Tonian and Cryogenian to earliest Ediacaran magmatism (mantle plume events followed by rifting); and (2) latest Ediacaran to late Cambrian magmatism. The detrital zircon record of the first episode supports a 660–650 Ma rift-to-drift transition followed by passive margin sedimentation of the upper Windermere Supergroup. After a period of apparent magmatic quiescence from 630–580 Ma, detrital zircon dates of 580–520 Ma from central-western Laurentia provide evidence for renewed rift magmatism preceding the initiation of the lower Paleozoic passive margin. These new U-Pb dates are used to present a refined model of Rodinia disassembly with improved timing constraints suggesting that its final breakup and the Sauk I transgression occurred ca. 520 Ma, in accordance with recent revisions to the timing of the Sauk transgressions in southwestern Laurentia.

Keywords

Rodinia break-up / Rift magmatism / Tectonostratigraphy / Detrital zircon geochronology / Sauk transgression

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Lauren I. Madronich: Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Methodology, Data aquisition and interpretation. William A. Matthews: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Methodology, Data curation, Conceptualization. Thomas Hadlari: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Conceptualization. Chad Morgan: Writing – review, Validation. Charles M. Henderson: Writing – review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

Measurements were conducted at the Calgary Geo- and Thermochronology Research Group and Laboratory (formerly the Centre for Pure and Applied Tectonics and Thermochronology) at the University of Calgary, a LA-ICP-MS thermochronology and geochronology laboratory funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI project 30696). Samples of the Tapeats Sandstone from the Grand Canyon were collected under Scientific Collection Permit #GRCA-2017-SCI-0024 under Study #GRCA-00578 issued to Dr. Karl Karlstrom. Thank you to Drs. Karlstrom and Crossey for the opportunity to participate in a research trip of a lifetime with the University of New Mexico. We appreciate reviews of an early draft of this work from Drs. Margot MeMechan and Dave Pattison. We thank Drs. James Hagadorn, Jim Crowley, Terry Poulton, Phil Simony, Kevin Root, Bill Arnott, and Brian Pratt for enthusiastic and thoughtful discussions about the Neoproterozoic and Cambrian tectonostratigraphy of the North American Cordillera. Constructive comments from Dr. Theresa Schwartz and 3 anonymous reviewers improved the quality and clarity of this paper, for which we thank them.

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