LATE- TO POST-TECTONIC SETTING OF SOME MAJOR PROTEROZOIC ANORTHOSITE - MANGERITE - CHARNOCKITE - GRANITE (AMCG) SUITES

Abstract

Recent zircon-based geochronological investigations in the Adirondack Mountains, in the state of New York, demonstrate that 1155 ± 6 Ma massif anorthosite was emplaced during the post-contractional phase (1160–1140 Ma) of the ca. 1200–1140 Ma Shawinigan orogeny. Emplacement of many other anorthosite – mangerite – charnockite – granite (AMCG) suites also correlates with the waning stage of orogeny and includes the ca. 1155 Ma Morin and Lac-Saint-Jean complexes, the ca. 1650 Ma Mealy Mountain complex, and the ca. 1450 Ma complexes of eastern Labrador. The correlation also applies to the ca. 930 Ma Rogaland anorthosite complex of Norway and the ca. 1060–1020 Ma late- to post-Ottawan anorthosites of central Quebec and the Appalachians of Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania. These correlations suggest models involving delamination of overthickened orogenic lithosphere by foundering or convective removal, followed by asthenospheric ascent, and ponding of gabbroic melt at the crust–mantle interface. Orogen rebound following delamination results in stable, dynamically balanced settings in which gabbroic magma evolves slowly at high pressure to produce high-aluminum pyroxene and coarse, intermediate plagioclase characteristic of massif anorthosite. Related melting of the lower crust produces mangeritic and charnockitic magma. Ultimately, both anorthositic and granitic magmas ascend, and lower-pressure fractionation yields the classic AMCG suites. Transtensional reactivation of lithospheric-scale shear zones and old sutures also correlates with important AMCG magmatism and provides conduits for gabbroic magma that ponds at the crust–mantle interface or in the deep crust to produce AMCG suites. Flat-slab subduction, back-arc extension, slab breakoff, and hotspots represent alternative settings that can account for gabbroic underplating and fractionation resulting in AMCG suites, if consistent with geochronological constraints.