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Potential geodynamic relationships between the development of peripheral orogens along the northern margin of Gondwana and the amalgamation of West Gondwana

  • Special Issue Gondwana Collision
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Abstract

The Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian evolution of peri-Gondwanan terranes (e.g. Avalonia, Carolinia, Cadomia) along the northern (Amazonia, West Africa) margin of Gondwana provides insights into the amalgamation of West Gondwana. The main phase of tectonothermal activity occurred between ca. 640–540 Ma and produced voluminous arc-related igneous and sedimentary successions related to subduction beneath the northern Gondwana margin. Subduction was not terminated by continental collision so that these terranes continued to face an open ocean into the Cambrian. Prior to the main phase of tectonothermal activity, Sm-Nd isotopic studies suggest that the basement of Avalonia, Carolinia and part of Cadomia was juvenile lithosphere generated between 0.8 and 1.1 Ga within the peri-Rodinian (Mirovoi) ocean. Vestiges of primitive 760–670 Ma arcs developed upon this lithosphere are preserved. Juvenile lithosphere generated between 0.8 and 1.1 Ga also underlies arcs formed in the Brazilide Ocean between the converging Congo/São Francisco and West Africa/Amazonia cratons (e.g. the Tocantins province of Brazil). Together, these juvenile arc assemblages with similar isotopic characteristics may reflect subduction in the Mirovoi and Brazilide oceans as a compensation for the ongoing breakup of Rodinia and the generation of the Paleopacific. Unlike the peri-Gondwanan terranes, however, arc magmatism in the Brazilide Ocean was terminated by continent-continent collisions and the resulting orogens became located within the interior of an amalgamated West Gondwana. Accretion of juvenile peri-Gondwanan terranes to the northern Gondwanan margin occurred in a piecemeal fashion between 650 and 600 Ma, after which subduction stepped outboard to produce the relatively mature and voluminous main arc phase along the periphery of West Gondwana. This accretionary event may be a far-field response to the breakup of Rodinia. The geodynamic relationship between the closure of the Brazilide Ocean, the collision between the Congo/São Francisco and Amazonia/West Africa cratons, and the tectonic evolution of the peri-Gondwanan terranes may be broadly analogous to the Mesozoic-Cenozoic closure of the Tethys Ocean, the collision between India and Asia beginning at ca. 50 Ma, and the tectonic evolution of the western Pacific Ocean.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Peter Cawood and Tim Kusky for constructive reviews. JBM acknowledges the continuing support of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada. Paleogeographic figures have been plotted with the aid of GPLATES open-source software (http://www.gplates.org/). RDN acknowledges NSF grant EAR-0308105. This is contribution 186 from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems, and TIGeR publication 420. Contribution to IGCP 597.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, St. Francis Xavier University, P.O. Box 5000, Antigonish, NS, B2G 2W5, Canada

    J. Brendan Murphy

  2. School of Earth and Environment (M004), University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Sergei Pisarevsky

  3. ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems (CCFS) and The Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR), Department of Applied Geology, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA, 6845, Australia

    Sergei Pisarevsky

  4. Institute of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 128 Lermontov Str., Irkutsk, 664033, Russia

    Sergei Pisarevsky

  5. Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio University, 316 Clippinger Laboratories, Athens, OH, 45701, USA

    R. Damian Nance

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Murphy, J.B., Pisarevsky, S. & Nance, R.D. Potential geodynamic relationships between the development of peripheral orogens along the northern margin of Gondwana and the amalgamation of West Gondwana. Miner Petrol 107, 635–650 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00710-012-0207-9

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