The petrology, geochronology and tectono-magmatic setting of igneous rocks in the Suckling-Dayman metamorphic core complex, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Southeastern Papua New Guinea has hosted magmatism throughout the Cenozoic, with the latest phase being concurrent with active extension in the Woodlark Rift. There, the Suckling-Dayman metamorphic core complex (SDMCC) has exhumed middle-crustal rocks in the past few million years along a still-active low-angle normal fault, the Mai'iu Fault. Uplift of the SDMCC has exposed metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks of Late Cretaceous-Pleistocene age that record an evolution from oceanic spreading to subduction, to collision, and finally to subduction-inversion and extensional exhumation. We present new petrographic, whole-rock geochemical and geochronologic (zircon U–Pb LA-ICP-MS) data from the SDMCC to reconstruct its long-term evolution. The dominant footwall-lithology of the SDMCC, the Goropu Metabasalt, has a MORB composition. Detrital zircons from metasedimentary beds intercalated with these basalts yield U–Pb-based maximum estimates for deposition of ~103 and ~72 Ma, suggesting a Late Cretaceous spreading age of the oceanic protolith. Bulk compositions of low-grade tholeiitic meta-gabbroic and -tonalitic rocks (Yau Igneous Complex) that intrude the Goropu Metabasalt reveal both enriched and depleted light rare earth element patterns. Zircon U–Pb ages from the Yau Igneous Complex range between ~60 and ~57 Ma, providing a minimum age for the formation of the Goropu Metabasalt. Much younger syn-extensional granitoids in the mafic footwall of the SDMCC have calc-alkaline to high-K compositions and U–Pb ages on zircon between ~3.7 and ~2.0 Ma. Our data indicate that the Mai'iu Fault had re-activated a Paleogene thrust as an extensional detachment fault by 3.7 ± 0.2 Ma. U–Pb ages of detrital zircons in modern streams draining the footwall of the SDMCC essentially reflect the ages revealed by the Paleocene and Plio-Pleistocene intrusions. Xenocrystic zircons in the Plio-Pleistocene granitoids imply that the crust underlying the metabasaltic carapace of the SDMCC consists chiefly of Australian-continent derived sedimentary rocks.