Correlation among lower to upper crustal components in an island arc: the Jurassic Bonanza arc, Vancouver Island, Canada

Abstract

The Westcoast Crystalline Complex (WCC), Island Intrusions, and Bonanza Group of Vancouver Island, Canada, form three different crustal levels of the Early to Middle Jurassic Bonanza island arc. Differential uplift has exposed the plutonic roots and the volcanic carapace of the arc for a strike length of ~500 km, and for another 250 km on the Queen Charlotte Islands. At deeper crustal levels within the arc, influx of mantle-derived magmas was accompanied by metamorphism and melting of Wrangellian basement rocks, yielding the heterogeneous WCC. Upward mobilization and hybridization of magmas to shallower levels in the crust resulted in the batholiths of the Island Intrusions and the lavas and pyroclastic rocks of the Bonanza Group. New U-Pb crystallization ages for plutonic rocks of the arc span an age range of 190.3 ± 1.0 to 168.6 ± 5.3 Ma. Ages of the WCC and western Island Intrusions are indistinguishable and overlap with published fossil and isotopic ages for the Bonanza Group. Younger Middle Jurassic ages for the eastern Island Intrusions overlap with those for plutonic rocks in the southern Coast Belt and Queen Charlotte Islands. All plutonic and volcanic rocks within the arc have overlapping geochemical signatures, supporting their comagmatic origin. All are light rare earth element-enriched with abundances 10-50× chondrites. The most mafic noncumulate gabbroic rocks have compositions typical of island arc basalts, with intermediate values of Al2O3 (16-17 wt.%) and high MgO (7-9 wt.%). More differentiated rocks follow a calc-alkaline trend with concomitant increase in Al2O3 (18-20 wt.%). Their geochemistry indicates varying degrees of mixing with melts of mafic Wrangellian basement.