First data on the age of rocks from the northern flank of the Olkhon terrane, western Baikal area

Abstract

The metamorphic complexes in the northern part of the Olkhon terrane (Zunduk megazone), Central Asian Fold Belt, are studied. It is found that the age of gneiss–granites, which correspond to granites of type I formed within the active continental margin, is 800 ± 11 Ma, whereas the age of the protolith of epidote–muscovite–feldspar–quartz schist, which formed by metamorphic reworking of island-arc volcanic rocks, is 650–630 Ma. New results and those published earlier show that the structure of the Olkhon terrane contains traces of at least three stages of different ages when suprasubduction processes were manifested. The earliest episode (∼850‒800 Ma) occurred within the Panthalassa, and the subsequent ones (∼650‒620 and ∼500 Ma) occurred in the Paleoasian Ocean. New data give us grounds to consider protoliths of the studied rocks from the northern flank of the Olkhon metamorphic terrane as products of convergence-related processes that took place within the limits of the paleooceans in the Late Precambrian, rather than in the Pleoproterozoic as was supposed earlier.