Tectonic evolution of the western Superior Province from NATMAP and Lithoprobe studies

Five discrete accretionary events assembled fragments of continental and oceanic crust into a coherent Superior craton by 2.60 Ga. They exhibit similar sequences of events at ~10 million year intervals: cessation of arc magmatism, early deformation, synorogenic sedimentation, sanukitoid magmatism, bulk shortening, regional metamorphism, late transpression, orogenic gold localization, emplacement of crust-derived granites, and postorogenic cooling. The Northern Superior superterrane recorded 3.7–2.75 Ga events prior to 2.72 Ga collision with the 3.0 Ga North Caribou superterrane. Following 2.98 Ga rifting, the Uchi margin of the North Caribou superterrane evolved in an upper plate setting before 2.72–2.70 Ga collision of the <3.4 Ga Winnipeg River terrane, which trapped synorogenic English River turbidites in the collision zone. The Winnipeg River terrane was reworked in 2.75–2.68 Ga magmatic and tectonic events, including the central Superior orogeny (2.71–2.70 Ga) that marks accretion of the juvenile wes...