Iapetan Oceans: An analog of Tethys?

Abstract

Abstract The Iapetus Ocean opened during the breakup of Rodinia by the separation of the major continental blocks of Laurentia (LA), Baltica, and Amazonia (AM). Relics of protracted continental extension to rifting from 750 to 530 Ma are observed along those continental margins, including two distinct phases of rifting: (1) at 750–680 Ma, and (2) at 615–550 Ma. Conventionally, the second phase is thought to have led to the opening of the Iapetus, while the first phase marked a failed rifting attempt. We challenge this concept on the basis of a new review of the geological observations from those margins and propose the successive opening of two “Iapetan” ocean basins. First, a “Paleo-Iapetus” opened between LA and AM at ca. 700 Ma, followed by the opening of the “Neo-Iapetus” at 600 Ma, which led to the final disaggregation of the supercontinent Rodinia. This scenario better explains the absence of the second rifting phase in western AM, as well as an otherwise enigmatic late Neoproterozoic detrital zircon age fraction in Phanerozoic sediments along that margin. We further propose that the opening of the Neo-Iapetus led to the detachment of small terranes from LA and their drift toward AM, following subduction of the Paleo-Iapetus mid-ocean ridge and the arrival of a mantle plume around 615 Ma. This could be a direct, deep-time analog of the opening of the Neo-Tethys Ocean in the late Paleozoic.