The ages of fractures in the Eye-Dashwa pluton, Atikokan, Canada

Abstract

Ages of fractures in the Eye-Dashwa granite pluton north of Atikokan, Ontario, are estimated from analyses of their filling materials (pegmatite, aplite, hornblendeporphyry, epidote, chlorite, gypsum, diabase, iron oxides, carbonate and clays). The analyses include radiometric age determinations of filling materials, comparison of crystallization temperatures of filling materials with the expected temperature of the pluton through time, and paragenetic relations derived from textures. The major fractures (primarily epidote and chlorite-filled) were produced by penetrative deformation during cooling immediately after intrusion of the pluton. From 2.6 Ga to 2.4 Ga they transected the pluton and largely defined the present overall fracture network. Less severe penetrative deformation occurred about 1.1 Ga, when a few diabase dikes and small gypsum fractures developed. A second source of fracturing appears to have existed through most of geological time, and it reopened segments of old fractures within about 400 m of the present erosional surface. It is unknown whether the near-surface, or supergene, fractures formed more or less continuously through time or in distinct episodes, such as during glacial periods. Open fractures, which are most common in the near-surface layer, tend to transmit groundwater, but fracture sealing due to the accumulation of filling materials seems to occur with time. Underground excavations such as nuclear fuel waste disposal vaults, would be less susceptible to the incursion of groundwater, if they were located below the near-surface layer.