Hf Isotopes in Detrital Zircon Point to a Mesoproterozoic Orogenic Belt Bordering the Western Margin of the Río de la Plata Craton

Abstract

Published U-Pb-Hf values for detrital zircons of Mesoproterozic age in Cambrian and Ordovician strata of the Argentina Precordillera and San Rafael Block of the Cuyania Terrane overlap extensively with values from Grenville/Appalachian detritus and the Granite-Rhyolite Province of Laurentia and with values from Sierra de Maz and Sierra de Pie de Palo of the Western Sierras Pampeanas (WSP) of western Argentina. These data have been interpreted as evidence of the Laurentian origin of Cuyania and the WSP. However, U-Pb and corresponding εHf values presented here for Mesoproterozoic zircons from Ediacaran sandstones deposited on the Río de la Plata Craton (RPC) are markedly similar to those of Mesoproterozoic zircons from Laurentia, Cuyania, and the WSP, thus contradicting the previous interpretation. Given the geotectonic history of southwestern Gondwana, the U-Pb-Hf values from the Mesoproterozoic zircons of the Piedras de Afilar and Cerro Largo Formations of the RPC are consistent with a proto-Andean Mesoproterozoic belt on the western margin of the RPC. This belt would have served as the basement and thus the provenance of Mesoproterozoic detrital zircons in Cuyania and the WSP. The existence of this Mesoproterozoic belt introduces a different paradigm for interpreting the late Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic geotectonic history of the proto-Andean margin of Gondwana and renders Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic transfers of a Sierra de Maz–Arequipa–Rio Apa Terrane and the Cuyania Terrane from Laurentia unnecessary.