Age and geological setting of Gold Creek gneiss, crystalline basement of the Windermere Supergroup, Cariboo Mountains, British Columbia

Gold Creek gneiss, the most recently discovered body of crystalline basement in the Canadian Cordillera, is a northwest-trending granitic to dioritic orthogneiss straddling the eastern end of the Canoe River valley, near the southeastern end of the Cariboo Mountains. U–Pb geochronometry of zircons from two samples of quartz diorite orthogneiss from two separate localities yielded similar, nearly linear, discordant arrays with upper intercepts of 2.08 Ga. The patterns of discordance in both samples preclude assigning a precise age, although a date between 2.0 and 2.1 Ga is geologically reasonable.North of Canoe River, Gold Creek gneiss is inferred to be nonconformably overlain by quartzite and marble, which in turn are inferred to be unconformably overlain by a conglomerate- and diamictite-bearing unit at the base of the lower Kaza Group of the Windermere Supergroup. In contrast with other exposures of basement and cover in the area, neither contact is marked by anomalously high strain or mylonitic rocks. ...