Onshore and offshore apatite fission-track dating from the southern Gulf of California: Insights into the time-space evolution of the rifting

Abstract

We present the results of a apatite fission-track (AFT) study on intrusive rocks in the southern Gulf of California, sampled along the eastern margin of Baja California Sur (western rift margin), as well as from islands and submerged rifted blocks within the Gulf of California, and from the conjugate Mexican margin (Nayarit state). For most of the samples U-Pb zircon and 40Ar-39Ar mineral ages were already available (Duque-Trujillo et al., 2015). Coupled with the new AFT data these ages provide a more complete information on cooling after emplacement. Our samples span a wide range of ages between 5.5±1.1 and 73.7±5.8Ma, and show a general spatial distribution, with late Miocene AFT ages (about 6Ma) aligned roughly NW-SE along a narrow offshore belt, parallel to Baja California Peninsula, separating older ages on both sides. This pattern suggests that in Late Miocene, deformation due to plate transtension focused at the eastern rheological boundary of the Baja California block. Some Early Miocene AFT ages onshore Baja California could be related to plutons emplaced at shallow depths and thermal resetting associated with the onset of volcanism at ~19Ma in this part of the Peninsula. On the other hand, an early extensional event similar to that documented in the eastern Gulf cannot be ruled out in the westernmost Baja California.