Abstract

AbstractSubsidence history and sandstone provenance of the Bisbee basin of southwestern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and northern Sonora, Mexico, demonstrate basin evolution from an array of Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous rift basins to a partitioned middle Cretaceous retroarc foreland basin. The foreland basin contained persistent depocenters that were inherited from the rift basin array and determined patterns of Albian–early Cenomanian sediment routing. Upper Jurassic and Valanginian–Aptian strata were deposited in three narrow extensional basins, termed the Altar-Cucurpe, Huachuca, and Bootheel basins. Initially rapid Late Jurassic subsidence in the basins slowed in the Early Cretaceous, then increased again from mid-Albian through middle Cenomanian time, marking an episode of foreland subsidence. Sandstone composition and detrital zircon provenance indicate different sediment sources in the three basins and demonstrate their continued persistence as depocenters during Albian foreland basin development. Late Jurassic basins received sediment from a nearby magmatic arc that migrated westward with time. Following a 10–15 m.y. depositional hiatus, an Early Cretaceous continental margin arc supplied sediment to the Altar-Cucurpe basin in Sonora as early as ca. 136 Ma, but local sedimentary and basement sources dominated the Huachuca basin of southern Arizona until catchment extension tapped the arc source at ca. 123 Ma. The Bootheel basin of southwestern New Mexico received sediment only from local basement and recycled sedimentary sources with no contemporary arc source evident. During renewed Albian–Cenomanian subsidence, the arc continued to supply volcanic-lithic sand to the Altar-Cucurpe basin, which by then was the foredeep of the foreland basin. Sandstone of the Bootheel basin is more quartzose than the Altar-Cucurpe basin, but uncommon sandstone beds contain neovolcanic lithic fragments and young zircon grains that were transported to the basin as airborne ash. Latest Albian–early Cenomanian U-Pb tuff ages, detrital zircon maximum depositional ages ranging from ca. 102 Ma to 98 Ma, and ammonite fossils all demonstrate equivalence of middle Cretaceous proximal foreland strata of the U.S.-Mexico border region with distal back-bulge strata of the Cordilleran foreland basin. Marine strata buried a former rift shoulder in southwestern New Mexico during late Albian to earliest Cenomanian time (ca. 105–100 Ma), prior to widespread transgression in central New Mexico (ca. 98 Ma). Lateral stratigraphic continuity across the former rift shoulder likely resulted from regional dynamic subsidence following late Albian collision of the Guerrero composite volcanic terrane with Mexico and emplacement of the Farallon slab beneath the U.S.–Mexico border region. Inferred dynamic subsidence in the foreland of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico was likely augmented in Sonora by flexural subsidence adjacent to an incipient thrust load driven by collision of the Guerrero superterrane.

Highlights

  • A fundamental plate tectonic reorganization took place during middle Cretaceous (­Albian– Cenomanian) time in the southwest U.S.– Mexico border region immediately following Jurassic–Early Cretaceous continental rifting (Bilodeau, 1982; Lawton and McMillan, 1999; Dickinson and Lawton, 2001b)

  • Sedimentary basins of the MBR are alternatively interpreted as an array of pull-apart basins formed along a throughgoing Middle–Late Jurassic (Anderson, 2015) or Late Jurassic (Anderson and Silver, 2005) sinistral transcurrent fault, the Mojave-Sonora megashear, which is inferred to have accommodated the opening of the Gulf of Mexico (Anderson and Nourse, 2005), Importantly, Late Jurassic–middle Cretaceous deposition in the Bisbee basin continued beyond the extensional history of the MBR, a theme we develop in this paper

  • New U-Peñasquitos basin (Pb) zircon ages on tuffs, combined with subsidence analysis and consideration of provenance history based on sandstone petrography and U-Pb zircon detrital ages, elucidate Late Jurassic–middle Cretaceous sedimentary evolution of the Bisbee basin and its link to magmatic arc systems on the continental margin of the southwestern U.S.–Mexico border region

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Summary

Introduction

A fundamental plate tectonic reorganization took place during middle Cretaceous (­Albian– Cenomanian) time in the southwest U.S.– Mexico border region immediately following Jurassic–Early Cretaceous continental rifting (Bilodeau, 1982; Lawton and McMillan, 1999; Dickinson and Lawton, 2001b). Development of a retroarc foreland basin in the U.S.–Mexico border region, as inferred from subsidence analysis of the Lower Cretaceous section in southwestern New Mexico (Mack, 1987a), did not begin until late Albian time, or at least 20 m.y. later than farther north. Studies of foreland basin depositional history and tectonics have tended to focus on latitudes north of Las Vegas, Nevada, as demonstrated by extensive reviews of basin history adjacent to the Sevier orogenic belt (Lawton, 1994; ­DeCelles, 2004; Yonkee and Weil, 2015). Mechanisms of Late Jurassic to middle Cretaceous sedimentary basin development in the U.S.–Mexico border region of Arizona, ­Sonora, and southwestern New Mexico, and their relationship with the Cordilleran foreland basin, remain poorly understood because of less extensive study and uncertainty regarding age and depositional setting of the Upper Jurassic– Cretaceous section.

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