Detrital zircon geochronology in blueschist-facies meta-conglomerates from the Western Alps: implications for the late Carboniferous to early Permian palaeogeography

Abstract

In the Western Alps, the Money Complex of the Gran Paradiso Massif, metamorphosed under blueschist facies during the Alpine cycle, is considered to be Permo-Carboniferous in age, but no palaeontological or radiometric data constrain this interpretation. A revision of the lithostratigraphy of the Money Complex allows recognizing a polygenic (graphite-rich) and a monogenic (graphite-poor) meta-sedimentary formation. Detrital zircon U–Pb geochronology in both meta-sedimentary formations shows that (i) the main population is Cambrian and Ordovician in age, (ii) the youngest grains are Silurian and Lower Devonian, and (iii) Carboniferous zircon grains are lacking. A careful study of the age distributions in the Alps suggests that potential source for the detrital material in the Money Complex is the Brianconnais basement. Late Carboniferous magmatism is widespread in the Helvetic Zone of the Alps. Permian magmatism is dominant in the Brianconnais, the Austroalpine and the Southalpine basements. The lack of Carboniferous zircons in the Money Complex suggests that the detritus was not shed from the Helvetic zone, which was separated from the Money basin by the Zone Houillere basin, where the main drainage pattern was developed from south to north and where the depocenters migrated northwards from the Upper Missisippian to Upper Pennsylvanian. We suggest that the Money Complex may had been located to the east of the main river drainage inside the Zone Houillere basin or alternatively may represent a small basin, located on the east of the Zone Houillere.