The Great Tonalite Sill of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia: emplacement into an active contractional high angle reverse shear zone (extended abstract)

Abstract

The Great Tonalite Sill (GTS) of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia (Brew & Ford 1981; Himmelberg et al. 1991) is one of the most remarkable intrusive bodies in the world: it extends for more than 800 km along strike and yet is only some 25 km or less in width. It consists of a belt of broadly tonalitic sheet-like plutons striking NW–SE and dipping steeply NE, and has been dated between 55 Ma and 81 Ma (J. L. Wooden, written communication to D. A. Brew, April 1990) (late Cretaceous to early Tertiary). The sill (it is steeply inclined and rather more like a “dyke”) is emplaced along the extreme western margin of the Coast Plutonic and Metamorphic Complex (CPMC), the high grade core of the Western Cordillera. The CPMC forms the western part of a group of tectonostratigraphic terranes including Stikine and Cache Creek, collectively known as the Intermontane Superterrane (Rubin et al. 1990). To the W of the GTS, rocks of the Insular Superterrane, including the Alexander and Wrangellia terranes and the Gravina belt, form generally lower metamorphic grade assemblages. The boundary between these two superterranes is obscure but it may lie close to, or be coincident with, the trace of the GTS.