Isotopic dating and structural relationships of granitoids and greenstones in the East Pilbara, Western Australia

Abstract

A structural RbSr isotopic study has been made on two small areas in the eastern Pilbara block, Western Australia. The sites were chosen because they showed good interrelationships of granitoid and greenstone units. At Warrery Gap, on the western side of the Corunna granitic dome, the acid volcanics of the Duffer Formation (at the top of the lower Talga-Talga Subgroup of the Warrawoona Group) show some updating, but a good 3506 ± 62 Ma isochron, with initial ratio (IR) of 0.7006 ± 0.0011, was recognized, consistent with the 3452 ± 16 Ma zircon measurement of Pidgeon (1978b). Both a penetrative D 1 deformation, and the doming of D 2 preceded intrusion of late tectonic granitoids, dated at 3270 ± 22 Ma (IR = 0.7015 ± 0.0003), into both the Duffer Formation and the overlying pillow lavas of the Salgash Subgroup. Thus, the Salgash Subgroup is much older than suggested by Glikson (1979) and the stratigraphic succession cannot contain a hiatus between the apparently conformable Talga-Talga and Salgash Subgroups of the magnitude he proposed. The granitic domes clearly owe their form to the D 2 deformation rather than to batholitic intrusion, but near horizontal structural lineations suggest that they were not formed by diapiric movements. A granodiorite and pink feldspar granite from just within the Corunna granitic dome are slightly deformed: pooled isochrons indicate an age of 3232 ± 27 Ma but different IRs of 0.7032 and 0.7009, respectively. At Tambourah, in the eastern Shaw granitic dome, local D 2 also deforms an intrusive microadamellite of age 3087 ± 34 Ma and IR = 0.7103 ± 0.0057. There is therefore a real spread in ages of D 2 granitoids and D 2 deformation between about 3300 and 3100 Ma. Layered megacrystic gneiss, at Tambourah, also intruded by the microadamellite, contains a nebulous foliation argued to be local S 1 . Layered and homogeneous megacrystic gneiss produce updated RbSr total rock isochrons of 2995 ± 95 and 2779 ± 38 Ma, respectively. The primary age of these D 1 gneisses is clearly greater than that of the D 2 granitoids and is probably indicated by Pidgeon's (1978c) zircon age of 3417 ± 40 Ma from the Shaw granitic dome. If so, Hickman's (1975) “Migmatite Suite” contains both D 1 gneisses and D 2 granitoids separated in age at Tambourah by ca. 300 Ma, although neither appears to be older than the lower part of the preserved layered sequence. The protocrust on which that sequence was deposited has yet to be directly identified.