Abstract
Late Mesozoic continental extension combined with more recent transpression along the mid-Tertiary Alpine Fault have combined in Fiordland to uplift and expose unusually deep structural levels of a mid-Cretaceous metamorphic core complex. High pressure Early Cretaceous granulite facies orthogneisses occupy the axial region of this complex and were emplaced from deeper levels beneath a thinned and ductilely deformed cover sequence comprising mid- Palaeozoic granites, metasediments and metavolcanic rocks. Emplacement of the core complex was associated with widespread resetting of mineral isotopic systems in the (amphibolite facies) cover sequence whilst at higher crustal levels in the once- contiguous regions of Westland and Nelson crustal extension was accompanied by high-level silicic magmatism, normal faulting and nonmarine sedimentation in rapidly-subsiding fault-bounded asynmetric basins. Although the original boundary between the orthogneisses and cover sequence may have been intrusive, the present contact is a ductile shear zone in which the granulites have been rnylonitized and retrogressed to the amphibolite facies. Strongly lineated rnylonites in this zone developed before 93 Ma consistent with emplacement of the core complex during continental rifting and breakup of the Pacific margin of Gondwana, and prior to the onset of seafloor spreading in the Tasman Sea.
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Gibson, G.M. (1990). Uplift and Exhumation of Middle and Lower Crustal Rocks in an Extensional Tectonic Setting, Fiordland, New Zealand. In: Salisbury, M.H., Fountain, D.M. (eds) Exposed Cross-Sections of the Continental Crust. NATO ASI Series, vol 317. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0675-4_4
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