A sequence of metasedimentary rocks in Denali National Park (Mt. McKinley and Healy quadrangles), previously mapped by Csejtey and others (1992) as unit DOs (Ordovician to Middle Devonian metasedimentary sequence) and correlated with rocks of the Nixon Fork terrane, contains both deep- and shallow-water facies that correlate best with rocks of the Dillinger and Mystic sequences (Farewell terrane), respectively, exposed to the southwest in the McGrath quadrangle and adjacent areas.New conodont collections indicate that the deep-water facies are at least in part of Silurian age, and can be grouped into three broad subunits. Subunit A is chiefly very fine grained, thinly interbedded calcareous, siliceous, and siliciclastic strata formed mostly as hemipelagic deposits. Subunit B is characterized by abundant calcareous siliciclastic turbidites and may correlate with the Terra Cotta Mountains Sandstone in the McGrath quadrangle. Subunit C contains thin-bedded to massive calcareous turbidites and debris flows, locally intercalated with calcareous siliciclastic turbidites. Sedimentary features suggest that subunits B and C accumulated in a fan and (or) slope apron setting. All three subunits contain subordinate layers of altered tuff and tuffaceous sediment. Turbidites were derived chiefly from a quartz-rich continent or continental fragment and a carbonate platform or shelf, with subordinate input from volcanic and (possibly) subduction complex (accretionary prism) sources. Limited paleocurrent data from subunit B turbidites show generally southward transport. Stratigraphic relations between the three subunits are uncertain, although we believe that subunit A is probably the oldest. Shallow-water facies, at least in part of earliest Late Devonian (early Frasnian) age, are exposed locally and were deposited in intertidal to deeper subtidal settings.Reconnaissance structural studies indicate that the most significant of two generations of folds have northerly vergence and presumably are the product of Mesozoic plate convergence.Deep-water rocks of Silurian age have been recognized in six Alaskan terranes outside the Farewell terrane. Comparison of unit DOs with coeval strata in these terranes reveals closest sedimentologic and biostratigraphic similarities with rocks of east-central Alaska (Livengood terrane) and western Alaska (Seward terrane) and less striking similarities with rocks in southeastern Alaska (Alexander terrane) and northern Alaska (Hammond subterrane of Arctic Alaska terrane). Coeval sequences in easternmost Alaska (Porcupine and Tatonduk terranes) correlate least well with DOs because they lack both Silurian siliciclastic turbidites and Upper Devonian platform carbonate rocks. Our correlations permit the interpretation that all Alaskan terranes with Silurian deep-water strata originated along or adjacent to the North American continental margin, but imply a gradient in Silurian turbidite distribution along this margin. Volcanic material preserved in DOs and related rocks may have been derived from the island arc represented by the Alexander terrane.
Lower Paleozoic platform carbonate strata in northern Alaska (parts of the Arctic Alaska, York, and Seward terranes; herein called the North Alaska carbonate platform) and central Alaska (Farewell terrane) share distinctive lithologic and faunal features, and may have formed on a single continental fragment situated between Siberia and Laurentia. Sedimentary successions in northern and central Alaska overlie Late Proterozoic metamorphosed basement; contain Late Proterozoic ooid-rich dolostones, Middle Cambrian outer shelf deposits, and Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian shallow-water platform facies, and include fossils of both Siberian and Laurentian biotic provinces. The presence in the Alaskan terranes of Siberian forms not seen in wellstudied cratonal margin sequences of western Laurentia implies that the Alaskan rocks were not attached to Laurentia during the early Paleozoic. The Siberian cratonal succession includes Archean basement, Ordovician shallow-water siliciclastic rocks, and Upper Silurian-Devonian evaporites, none of which have counterparts in the Alaskan successions, and contains only a few of the Laurentian conodonts that occur in Alaska. Thus we conclude that the lower Paleozoic platform successions of northern and central Alaska were not part of the Siberian craton during their deposition, but may have formed on a crustal fragment rifted away from Siberia during the Late Proterozoic. The Alaskan strata have more similarities to coeval rocks in some peri-Siberian terranes of northeastern Russia (Kotelny, Chukotka, and Omulevka). Lithologic ties between northern Alaska, the Farewell terrane, and the peri-Siberian terranes diminish after the Middle Devonian, but Siberian affinities in northern and central Alaskan biotas persist into the late Paleozoic.
Detrital zircon data are reported from Mesoproterozoic to Ordovician strata from two tectonic domains in Mauritania: 14 samples from the Taoudeni Basin of the West African Craton and 15 samples from the Mauritanide orogen. Taoudeni Basin samples show four sequential, distinctive detrital zircon age distributions, which we refer to as "barcodes". From old to young these are the Char, Assabet, Téniagouri, and Oujeft barcodes, each named for a constituent stratigraphic unit. Zircon age maxima are as follows, with the dominant ones in italics. The Char barcode, from Mesoproterozoic (ca. 1100 Ma) strata including the Char Group, yielded zircon age maxima at 2941, 2871, 2703, 2447, 2076, and 2041 Ma, all potentially traceable to sources in the West African Craton. The Assabet barcode is from strata, including the eponymous Assabet el Hassiane Group, that were deposited between ca. 883 and ca. 570 Ma; it has age maxima at 2137, 2053, 1769, 1510, 1212, 1021, and 936 Ma and a pronounced minimum during Geon 16 (1699–1600 Ma). The Assabet9s Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic zircons cannot have come from the West African Craton or any of its surrounding orogens. The Téniagouri barcode, which takes its name from the Téniagouri Group, was deposited at ca. 569 Ma; it has dominant maxima at 1983, 1872, 1522, 1215, 1109, 988, and 601 Ma and resembles the Assabet barcode but with the addition of the youngest population. The Oujeft barcode, named for the Oujeft Group, is from strata deposited between 541 or slightly earlier and 444 Ma or younger, has age maxima at 2124, 2053, 1197, 624 and 579 Ma. The Téniagouri and Oujeft barcodes record input from Pan-African orogens. In the Mauritanide orogen, most of the metasedimentary rock units that were sampled yielded detrital zircon age spectra that match one of the Taoudeni Basin barcodes. These results imply new depositional age constraints based on barcode correlation and suggest affinities between Mauritanide strata and the West African Craton. Detrital zircon age distributions that broadly resemble the Assabet barcode occur in the Neoproterozoic of Morocco, Ghana, Greece, Russia, Brazil, and, in the Appalachian orogen of Canada and the United States, Avalonia and Ganderia. The recent Rodinia reconstruction of Evans (2021) restores these far-flung localities to a more compact area, with Avalonia, Ganderia, and other peri-Gondwanan terranes occupying an oblong area between Amazonia, Laurentia, Baltica, and West Africa. Our preferred explanation is that most of these places received detritus via the same continent-scale fluvial system as the West African craton. Among the craton9s nearest Rodinia neighbors in the Evans (2021) reconstruction for 900 Ma, Amazonia has known igneous rocks corresponding to all of the major Assabet age populations, and also a lull, though not a complete magmatic gap, during Geon 16. This is consistent with overall north-directed paleocurrents in the Assabet El Hassiane Group and its correlatives on the West African Craton.
40 Ar/ 39 Ar geochronology reveals that turbidite-hosted gold deposits in the southern Alaska accretionary prism are the same age as nearby near-trench plutons. These early Tertiary plutons and gold lodes formed above a slab window during subduction of an oceanic spreading center. Ridge subduction is a previously unrecognized tectonic process for the generation of lode gold.
We present new U/Pb (monazite, zircon) and 40Ar/39Ar (biotite, amphibole) ages for 10 Tertiary plutons and dikes that intrude the Chugach–Prince William accretionary complex of southern Alaska. The Sanak pluton of Sanak Island yielded ages of 61.1±0.5 Ma (zircon) and 62.7±0.35 (biotite). The Shumagin pluton of Big Koniuji Island yielded a U/Pb zircon age of 61.1±0.3 Ma. Two biotite ages from the Kodiak batholith of Kodiak Island are nearly identical at 58.3±0.2 and 57.3±2.5 Ma. Amphibole from a dike at Malina Bay, Afognak Island, is 59.3±2.2 Ma; amphibole from a dike in Seldovia Bay, Kenai Peninsula, is 57.0±0.2 Ma. The Nuka pluton, Kenai Peninsula, yielded ages of 56.0±0.5 Ma (monazite) and 54.2±0.1 (biotite). Biotite plateau ages are reported for the Aialik (52.2±0.9 Ma), Tustumena (53.2±1.1 Ma), Chernof (54.2±1.1 Ma), and Hive Island (53.4±0.4 Ma) plutons of the Kenai Peninsula. Together, these new results confirm, but refine, the previously documented along-strike diachronous age trend of near-trench magmatism during the early Tertiary. We suggest that this event began at 61 Ma at Sanak Island, 2-4 m.y. later than previously supposed. An intermediate dike near Tutka Bay, Kenai Peninsula, yielded a hornblende age of 115±2 Ma. This represents a near-trench magmatic event that had heretofore gone unrecognized on the Kenai Peninsula; correlative Early Cretaceous near-trench plutons are known from the western Chugach Mountains near Palmer.
