Low-temperature thermochronology applied to ancient settings

Abstract

Low-temperature thermochronometric dating techniques are commonly used to reveal and quantify the spatial and temporal pattern of cooling and exhumation in many active mountain belts. These methods illuminate the relationship between rock exhumation, and the processes that bring rock to the surface, including climate-driven surface processes. Thermochronological studies on rocks in ancient settings (Precambrian and Paleozoic) are far more complicated, and in general have largely failed to reveal exhumation processes in orogenic belts, mainly due to imprecision of the technique, complications from radiation damage, and subsequent resetting. However, in a few locations, remnants of the exhumation record of ancient orogens may be studied with low-temperature dating techniques and in these cases we can gather first-order information on tectonics, thermal events, and exhumation processes that have occurred in the deep past. Here we provide an overview of the most common low-temperature thermochronology methods of fission-track and (U–Th)/He dating of apatite and zircon and discuss methodological challenges in their application to old settings. We review several case studies from the Northern Appalachians, central Argentina, the Canadian Shield, central Wyoming, and the European Variscides where thermochronology data have been successful in reconstructing geologic processes in deep-time that have affected the upper crust. With these examples we provide sampling strategies and analytical approaches that partly circumvent issues related to radiation damage in old mineral grains that result in changes in the retention of helium and fission tracks.