Single zircon ages of migmatitic gneisses and granulites in the Obudu Plateau: Timing of granulite-facies metamorphism in southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

A single zircon geochronological study of gneisses from the Obudu Plateau of southeastern Nigeria, using the evaporation technique, indicates that zircons recorded several Precambrian high-grade metamorphic events (Eburnean and Pan-African). Igneous and multifaceted metamorphic zircons yielded 207Pb/ 206Pb ages of 2062.4 ± 0.4 Ma, 1803.8 ± 0.4 Ma and 574 ± 10 Ma, respectively and confirm for the first time that granulite-facies metamorphism affected the basement of southeastern Nigeria, resulting in the formation of charnockites and granulitic gneisses. The Pan-African high-grade event was coeval with the formation of granulites in Cameroon, Togo and Ghana and resulted from collisional processes during continental amalgamation to form the Gondwana supercontinent. The sources of the sediments, which were deposited at ≈605 Ma and metamorphosed at 574 Ma, comprise older igneous and metamorphic protoliths (including inherited xenocrystic zircons up to 2.5 Ga in age). The Palaeoproterozoic zircons seem to have survived Pan-African melting.