Early Mississippian precollisional, peri-Gondwanan volcanic arc in NE-Mexico: Aserradero Rhyolite from Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas

Abstract

The study of the pre-Mesozoic geological history of NE Mexico offers the opportunity to reconstruct the processes that occurred at the NW margin of Gondwana. The Huizachal–Peregrina Anticlinorium, which is located west of Ciudad Victoria (Tamaulipas) is a regional structure produced during the Cretaceous–Palaeogene Laramide Orogeny. Its eroded core exposes Precambrian and Palaeozoic units that together comprise the Sierra Madre Oriental basement. These units are the Neoproterozoic metamorphic Novillo Complex, the Ordovician Peregrina Tonalite, the metamorphic Pennsylvanian Granjeno Complex, and the sedimentary Silurian–Permian Tamatan Group. Aserradero Rhyolite belongs to the Tamatan Group, occurring between the siliciclastic deposits of the Early Mississippian Vicente Guerrero and the Pennsylvanian Del Monte Formations. The studied rhyolites display geochemical characteristics corresponding to high-K, low-Sr, and S-type granitoid rocks that may have been produced by upper-crustal anatexis from a source similar to that of the Novillo Complex. New LA-ICP-MS U–Pb geochronological analysis on zircons separated from the Aserradero Rhyolite yielded Early to Middle Mississippian crystallisation ages of 347.8 ± 2.7 Ma and 340.7 ± 3.6 Ma, confirming that this acidic unit is in its original stratigraphic position despite the pervasive deformation of the Tamatan Group. Based on the correlation with other Carboniferous–Early Permian magmatic complexes in Mexico and Central America, it is suggested that the Aserradero Rhyolite represents an early stage of a precollisional Carboniferous–Permian peri-Gondwanan arc, occurring also in the Las Delicias, Oaxaquia, the Acatlan Complex, the Maya Block, as well as in the buried crystalline basement along the Western Gulf of Mexico. The assembly of the Precambrian and Palaeozoic basement units from the Huizachal–Peregrina Anticlinorium were integrated with the Ciudad Victoria Block, which was dismembered from Oaxaquia and their peripheral units during the Upper-Jurassic Gulf of Mexico opening.