Geology and U-Pb geochronology of rocks of the Eokuk Uplift: a pre-2.8 Ga basement inlier in the northwestern Slave Province, Nunavut, Canada

Abstract

Rocks of the Eokuk Uplift have been mapped in detail along the coast of Coronation Gulf and 10 key units have been dated by U-Pb analysis of zircon, monazite, and titanite. The combined data indicate that this inlier of the Slave Province has a >3.2 Ga crustal component, evidence of a granulite-grade orogenic event predating 2.8 Ga and a lack of evidence for any significant orogenic activity corresponding to the 2.7-2.6 Ga events common in the rest of the Slave Province. The oldest rocks in the study area are a succession of granitoid and supracrustal gneisses that have been metamorphosed to amphibolite to granulite facies. From field relationships, the oldest rock is a granodiorite to tonalite orthogneiss, with a zircon crystallization age of 3254+13-6 Ma. A granite gneiss, which may be a small felsic intrusion or an anatectic melt of the tonalite gneiss, yields a zircon age of 3216+14-13 Ma. A K-feldspar megacrystic monzogranite gneiss contains old, discordant, possibly inherited zircons with 207Pb/206Pb ages ranging from 3103 to 3039 Ma, together with coexisting 2879 ± 3 Ma zircon and monazite. These high-grade gneisses are intruded by two megacrystic granite plutons, dated at 2887 ± 2 and 2881+4-3 Ma. The absence of extensive recrystallization and complex structures in these plutons indicates that this igneous event postdated the high-grade metamorphism. An amphibolite-grade synplutonic metamorphic event is dated at ~2880 Ma by new monazite in the older gneiss units. A series of variably deformed mafic to felsic dykes and pegmatites intrude both the granites and gneisses and constrain the end of penetrative deformation in the area. Of these, a boudinaged diorite dyke, with a strong internal foliation parallel to the regional fabric, is dated at 2877 ± 3 Ma. A younger granodiorite dyke that crosscuts the regional fabric at a high angle and has only a weak internal foliation yields an age of 2864+3-9 Ma. An undeformed syenogranite pegmatite, which represents a suite that intrudes all other units in the study area, has a combined zircon-monazite age of 2852 ± 3 Ma. The varying degrees of deformation in these minor intrusive rocks constrains the end of deformation in the study area to ca. 2850 Ma. This contrasts with data from the rest of the Slave Province, where the main phases of deformation, metamorphism, and synmetamorphic plutonism have been dated at ca. 2.62-2.59 Ga. Metamorphic titanite ages from the diorite and granodiorite dykes indicate two lower amphibolite to greenschist facies metamorphic events: one at ca. 2705 Ma and one at ca. 2646 Ma. The youngest Archean magmatic event in the area is represented by granite intrusions at 2594+3-2 Ma, coeval with crystallization of titanite at greenschist-grade conditions in some of the older gneissic and intrusive rocks.