Character of the pre-Mesozoic basement along the edge of the western US craton: Pb isotopic evidence from Mesozoic plutonism

The pre-Mesozoic cratonic crust of the western US was a composite of provinces composed mostly of Archean and Early Proterozoic rocks that had been truncated by Late Proterozoic rifting and had some new Paleozoic crust added along the western edge. Mesozoic and younger geologic events greatly obscured this pre-Mesozoic basement along the craton edge. However, the Pb isotopic signatures of Mesozoic plutons provide significant clues to the character of the crust in which they formed or were emplaced because of a strong contrast in Pb concentration between low-Pb, mantle-derived melts and Pb-rich crust. Thus, magmas whether derived from the crust or the mantle with subsequent crustal interaction, will likely have Pb isotopic compositions that reflect those of the crust. In the western US the Pb isotopic compositions of Mesozoic plutonic rocks have strong regional characteristics. Within the Early Proterozoic Mojave crustal province, Mesozoic plutonic rocks have a large range of 206Pb/204Pb ratios that plot above the crustal average, relatively high 207Pb/204Pb ratios that suggest an Archean contribution, and Pb and Sr isotopic compositions that are not correlated and that do not distinguish age groups. At the southern and western edge of this province where some 1.1 Ga rocks are exposed,more » 208Pb/204Pb ratios lie along the average crust model curve. These data suggest that any individual pluton provides a composite Pb isotopic composition for a discrete vertical section of the crust. Pb isotopic compositions of plutons in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin are very different from those described above with 206Pb/204Pb ratios starting at 18.6, well-correlated Pb isotopic trends starting below the crustal model but extending to values that require input from the very radiogenic Wyoming province Archean crust, and good correlations between Pb and (1) Sr isotopic compositions and (2) W-E geographic position.« less