Detrital Zircon U-Pb geochronology and provenance of the Eocene Willwood Formation, Northern Absaroka Basin, Wyoming

Abstract

We report the results of U-Pb ages from detrital zircon populations in the lower Eocene synorogenic Willwood Formation in the northern Absaroka Basin, Wyoming. Zircons (n=229) were extracted from three sandstone beds and one ash layer in the Willwood Formation at the base of Jim Mountain in the North Fork Shoshone River Valley. K-S statistical analysis indicates that the three sandstones, which were sampled from the base, middle, and top of the formation, have identical age spectra, indicating that the sandstone provenance remained the same during the duration of Willwood deposition. The zircon age spectra are dominated by Archean zircons (61%), with peak ages at 3270 and 2770 Ma. These sandstones also have very early Paleoproterozoic zircons (∼2450 Ma), which likely were derived from the Tobacco Root Mountains. The final significant age peak is ∼70 Ma, which is likely associated with the Cretaceous Tobacco Root batholith. The Jim Mountain ash, which occurs at the top of the succession, just beneath the allocthonous volcanic rocks of the Heart Mountain slide, has a maximum depositional age of ∼50 Ma. Between 49–50 Ma, as Eocene volcanism in the northern Absaroka Range became more prominent, stratovolcanoes grew and disrupted sediment transport into the Absaroka basin. Lower Wapiti sandstones to the southwest show a mix of Eocene, recycled Proterozoic and Archean grains. The coeval Crandall Conglomerate, which was dismembered by the emplacement of the Heart Mountain slide in the northern Absaroka Range, has a distinct detrital zircon age spectrum. Thus these stream systems that deposited the Crandall did not share the headwaters with the streams that supplied sediment to the Absaroka basin.