Geochemical evolution of Middle—Late Cenozoic magmatism in the northern part of the Rio Grande Rift, Western United States

Abstract

Geochemical studies of the Middle—Late Cenozoic succession of volcanic rocks from the northern part of the Rio Grande Rift were conducted. The initial activation of the rift structure was coeval with voluminous eruptions of lava and pyroclastic material of mainly intermediate and acid compositions in the San Juan volcanic field 35–27 Ma. The composition of the volcanic products after the rifting was dominated by basic and intermediate lavas. It is shown that the basanites and alkali basalts of the territory had geochemical characteristics of sublithospheric slab and above–sl ab sources. The processes of the riftogenic thinning of lithosphere are expressed by geochemical parameters that reflect the interaction between the liquids from the sublithospheric mantle and the rocks from different levels of both the lithospheric mantle and lower crust. In the 35–18 Ma interval, melts of different–depth sublithospheric and lithospheric sources erupted simultaneously in the northern part of the rift. However, the products of interaction between the sublithospheric and lithospheric materials dominated later in the past 15 Ma, although the sublithospheric magmatic liquids erupted at the northern structural termination of the rift within the Yampa volcanic field at about 10 Ma.