U–Pb zircon ages of Kangâmiut dykes and detrital zircons in metasediments in the Palaeoproterozoic Nagssugtoqidian Orogen (West Greenland): Clues to the pre-collisional history of the orogen

Abstract

In the southern marginal zone of the Palaeoproterozoic Nagssugtoqidian orogen and its foreland (West Greenland), Archaean gneisses were intruded by the syn-kinematic Kangâmiut dyke swarm. Leucodioritic cores of two dykes have yielded U–Pb zircon ages of 2036±5 Ma and 2046±8 Ma (2σ). Dyke emplacement and associated crustal movements thus occurred well before the main plutonic and tectonic activity within the orogen (∼1900–1800 Ma). In the central Nagssugtoqidian orogen, pelitic to semi-pelitic metasedimentary rocks were intruded by 1920–1900 Ma quartz diorites and tonalites of the Arfersiorfik association, which have chemical and isotopic compositions comparable with igneous suites formed in arc environments. The supracrustal and intrusive rocks are separated from Archaean gneisses by décollements of high-grade mylonite and annealed marble, and are allochthonous units. Detrital zircons in two samples of metasedimentary rocks from these allochthons are mostly large, poorly rounded, 2100–1950 Ma old with only a few Archaean grains. Deposition of the metasediments must have taken place between ∼1950 and ∼1920 Ma, before the intrusion of rocks of the Arfersiorfik association. The zircons may have been shed from presently unrecognised pre-Arfersiorfik association igneous complexes (arcs?), whose emplacement coincided with intrusion of the ∼2040 Ma Kangâmiut dykes into deforming Archaean crust in what later became the southern margin of the orogen. Quartz-rich psammitic metasedimentary rocks are also present in the central Nagssugtoqidian orogen. Detrital zircons from one sample yielded a few 2150–2250 Ma grains, but are predominantly Archaean. They include a high proportion of 3300–3400 Ma grains (the oldest material yet found in the orogen). Thrust-bounded panels of metasedimentary rocks in Archaean gneisses occur at the boundary between the southern and central parts of the orogen coinciding with the northern limit of the Kangâmiut dykes. Of the detrital zircons in one metasediment sample from these panels a few yielded ages around 2100–2000 Ma, some were Archaean, and >50% were ∼2400 Ma. Deposition of these two sediment suites took place after ∼2100 Ma. The detrital zircon population shows that the sources for these sediments were different from that of the above-mentioned allochthonous rocks. Neither the 3300–3400 Ma nor the ∼2400 Ma detrital grains can be matched with any rocks in Greenland, indicating a distal source for these sediments.