Interplay of Cretaceous transpressional deformation and continental arc magmatism in a long-lived crustal boundary, central Fiordland, New Zealand

Abstract

Abstract Recovering the time-evolving relationship between arc magmatism and deformation, and the influence of anisotropies (inherited foliations, crustal-scale features, and thermal gradients), is critical for interpreting the location, timing, and geometry of transpressional structures in continental arcs. We investigated these themes of magma-deformation interactions and preexisting anisotropies within a middle- and lower-crustal section of Cretaceous arc crust coinciding with a Paleozoic boundary in central Fiordland, New Zealand. We present new structural mapping and results of Zr-in-titanite thermometry and U-Pb zircon and titanite geochronology from an Early Cretaceous batholith and its host rock. The data reveal how the expression of transpression in the middle and lower crust of a continental magmatic arc evolved during emplacement and crystallization of the ∼2300 km2 lower-crustal Western Fiordland Orthogneiss (WFO) batholith. Two structures within Fiordland’s architecture of transpressional shear zones are identified. The gently dipping Misty shear zone records syn-magmatic oblique-sinistral thrust motion between ca. 123 and ca. 118 Ma, along the lower-crustal WFO Misty Pluton margin. The subhorizontal South Adams Burn thrust records mid-crustal arc-normal shortening between ca. 114 and ca. 111 Ma. Both structures are localized within and reactivate a recently described >10 km-wide Paleozoic crustal boundary, and show that deformation migrated upwards between ca. 118 and ca. 114 Ma. WFO emplacement and crystallization (mainly 118–115 Ma) coincided with elevated (>750 °C) middle- and lower-crustal Zr-in-titanite temperatures and the onset of mid-crustal cooling at 5.9 ± 2.0 °C Ma−1 between ca. 118 and ca. 95 Ma. We suggest that reduced strength contrasts across lower-crustal pluton margins during crystallization caused deformation to migrate upwards into thermally weakened rocks of the mid-crust. The migration was accompanied by partitioning of deformation into domains of arc-normal shortening in Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks and domains that combined shortening and strike-slip deformation in crustal-scale subvertical, transpressional shear zones previously documented in Fiordland. U-Pb titanite dates indicate Carboniferous–Cretaceous (re)crystallization, consistent with reactivation of the inherited boundary. Our results show that spatio-temporal patterns of transpression are influenced by magma emplacement and crystallization and by the thermal structure of a reactivated boundary.