Simultaneous batholith emplacement, terrane/continent collision, and oroclinal bending in the Blue Mountains Province, North American Cordillera

Abstract

The North American Cordillera is a classic example of accretionary orogen, consisting of multiple oceanic terranes attached to the western margin of Laurentia during the Mesozoic times. Although the Cordillera is linear for most parts, terrane boundaries are at a high angle to the overall structural grain in several segments of the orogen, which has been a matter of longstanding controversy as to how and when these orogenic curvatures formed. This paper discusses mechanisms, kinematics, and timing of initiation of one of these major curvatures, the Blue Mountains Province in northeastern Oregon. Here magmatic fabric patterns and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility in the Wallowa batholith record three phases of progressive deformation of the host Wallowa terrane during Early Cretaceous. First is terrane-oblique ~NE-SW shortening, interpreted as recording attachment of the amalgamated oceanic and fringing terranes to the continental margin during dextral convergence at ~140 Ma. Deformation subsequently switched to pure shear-dominated ~NNE-SSW shortening associated with crustal thickening, caused by continued impingement of the amalgamated Blue Mountains superterrane into a presumed westward concave reentrant in the continental margin at ~135–128 Ma. Upon impingement (at ~126 Ma), the northern portion of the superterrane became “locked,” leading to reorientation of the principal shortening direction to ~NNW-SSE while its still deformable southern portion rotated clockwise about a vertical axis. We thus propose oblique bending as the main mechanism of the orocline formation whereby horizontal compressive forces resulting from plate convergence acted at an angle to the terrane boundaries.