Late Paleoproterozoic terrane accretion in northwestern Canada and the case for circum-Columbian orogenesis

Abstract: The reconstruction of the paleocontinental configuration involving ancestral North America (Laurentia) at the Paleoproterozoic–Mesoproterozoic boundary has been developed in the last 30 years with different scenarios being proposed and different combinations of landmasses assembled together. However, the lack of information for the northwestern side of the North American craton has so far been an obstacle for the complete paleocontinental reconstruction and its tectonic history. Here we provide new age determinations on rocks of the Wernecke Supergroup and of the Wernecke Breccia of the Wernecke Mountains in Yukon to provide a more complete picture of the entire North American craton and its possible conterminous at 1600Ma. The six youngest U–Pb ages of the detrital zircon from quartz sandstones of the Wernecke Supergroup suggest that the sedimentary succession is as old as 1640Ma. Lu–Hf garnet ages on garnet bearing schists of the Fairchild Lake Group (lower Wernecke Supergroup) give a bimodal population of ages of approximately 1600Ma and 1370Ma: the first age is related to the Racklan Orogeny, and the younger event is likely attributable to a reheating episode (Hart River Sills emplacement). The younger age of the Wernecke Supergroup puts into question the previous model concerning the emplacement of the Bonnet Plume River Intrusions, and requires the development of a new tectonic model for the northwestern margin of Laurentia. This new model involves obduction of an exotic terrane on top of the Wernecke Supergroup during the latest phases of the Racklan Orogeny (ca. 1600Ma). This exotic terrane, herein called Bonnetia, contains rocks of the Bonnet Plume River intrusions and of the Slab volcanics. During the hydrothermal event that led to the emplacement of the Wernecke Breccia, clasts and megaclasts of the overlying Bonnetia foundered down to the breccia pipes to the level of the Wernecke Supergroup, and this dynamic explains the existence of older rocks engulfed within a younger sedimentary succession. The Racklan Orogeny is now interpreted as a northwestern expression of the Mazatzal Orogeny of southwestern United States, and of the Labradorian Orogeny of eastern Canada which was in turn connected with the Gothian Orogeny of Scandinavia. The connection among these orogenic events makes plausible the hypothesis of a circum-Laurentian orogenic belt with possible extensions in other landmasses (Australia, Antarctica, Siberia, or China) where coeval deformation belts are present. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]