H. Daniel Gibson

New constraints on Eocene extension within the Canadian Cordillera and identification of Phanerozoic protoliths for footwall gneisses of the Okanagan Valley shear zone

The Okanagan Valley shear zone delineates the SW margin of the Shuswap metamorphic complex, the largest core complex within the North American Cordillera. The Okanagan Valley shear zone is a major Eocene extensional fault zone that facilitated exhumation of the southern Shuswap metamorphic complex during the orogenic collapse of the SE Canadian Cordillera when convergence at the western margin of North America switched from transpression to transtension. This study documents the petrology, structure, and age of the Okanagan gneiss, the main lithology within the footwall of the Okanagan Valley shear zone, and constrains its history from protolith to exhumed shear zone. The Okanagan gneiss is an ∼1.5-km-thick, west-dipping panel composed of intercalated orthogneiss and paragneiss in which intense ductile deformation of the Okanagan Valley shear zone is recorded. New U-Pb zircon ages from the gneiss and crosscutting intrusions constrain the development of the Okanagan gneiss to the Eocene, contemporaneous with widespread extension, intense deformation, high-grade metamorphism, and anatexis in the southern Canadian Cordillera. Thermobarometric data from the paragneiss domain indicate Eocene exhumation from between 17 and 23 km depth, which implies 64–89 km of WNW-directed horizontal extension based on an original shear zone angle of ∼15°. Neither the Okanagan gneiss nor its protolith represents exhumed Proterozoic North American cratonic basement as previously postulated. New U-Pb data demonstrate that the protolith for the gneiss is Phanerozoic, consisting of Mesozoic intrusions emplaced within a late Paleozoic–Mesozoic layered sequence of sedimentary rocks.

Deformation and extensional exhumation of 1.9 Ga high-pressure granulites along the Wholdaia Lake shear zone, south Rae craton, Northwest Territories, Canada

The origin of high-pressure granulites in the south Rae craton and Snowbird tectonic zone (STZ) is highly enigmatic. Current models for their formation and exhumation envisage continental collision at 2.55 Ga and intracratonic orogenesis at 1.9 Ga, or collision and exhumation at ca. 1.9 Ga. As an attempt to reconcile these disparate models, we conducted a regional and detailed mapping program along a geophysical discontinuity 100 km west of the STZ within the south Rae craton of the Northwest Territories, Canada. This work presents the discovery of a new crustal-scale shear zone, the Wholdaia Lake shear zone (WLsz), which deformed and transposed host rocks into a 20-km-wide and 300-km-long ductile high-strain zone. U-Pb zircon geochronology was utilized to establish host-rock crystallization ages, timing of deposition of metasedimentary rocks, and age constraints of metamorphism and ductile shearing. Hanging-wall metasedimentary rocks have a new depositional range of 1.98–1.93 Ga and contain abundant metamorphic zircon at 1.91 Ga. The protoliths of the footwall mafic granulite orthogneisses crystallized at 2.6 Ga and were metamorphosed at 1.9 Ga, which extends the known footprint of 1.9 Ga metamorphism 100 km west of the STZ. During and after 1.9 Ga metamorphism, the WLsz began progressively exhuming footwall rocks in three distinct stages, associated with (1) normal-oblique shearing at high-pressure granulite-facies conditions, (2) normal-oblique shearing accompanied by mylonitization at amphibolite-facies conditions, and (3) normal-oblique shearing with ultramylonite development at amphiboliteto greenschist-facies conditions. Ductile shearing was waning by 1.86 Ga, based on ages obtained from late synto postkinematic crosscutting dikes. Collectively, the WLsz in concert with other regional structures aided both extensional and thrust-sense exhumation of a large high-grade terrane at 1.9 Ga in the south Rae craton. LITHOSPHERE; v. 10; no. 5; p. 641–661; GSA Data Repository Item 2018268 | Published online 31 August 2018 https:// doi .org /10 .1130 /L704 .1

Corrugated architecture of the Okanagan Valley shear zone and the Shuswap metamorphic complex, Canadian Cordillera

The distribution of tectonic superstructure across the Shuswap metamorphic complex of southern British Columbia is explained by east-west– trending corrugations of the Okanagan Valley shear zone detachment. Geological mapping along the southern Okanagan Valley shear zone has identified 100-m-scale to kilometer-scale corrugations parallel to the extension direction, where synformal troughs hosting upper-plate units are juxtaposed between antiformal ridges of crystalline lower-plate rocks. Analysis of available structural data and published geological maps of the Okanagan Valley shear zone confirms the presence of ≤40-km-wavelength corrugations, which strongly influence the surface trace of the detachment system, forming spatially extensive salients and reentrants. The largest reentrant is a semicontinuous belt of late Paleozoic to Mesozoic upper-plate rocks that link stratigraphy on either side of the Shuswap metamorphic complex. Previously, these belts were considered by some to be autochthonous, implying minimal motion on the Okanagan Valley shear zone (≤12 km); conversely, our results suggest that they are allochthonous (with as much as 30–90 km displacement). Corrugations extend the Okanagan Valley shear zone much farther east than previously recognized and allow for hitherto separate gneiss domes and detachments to be reconstructed together to form a single, areally extensive Okanagan Valley shear zone across the Shuswap metamorphic complex. If this correlation is correct, the Okanagan Valley shear zone may have enveloped the entire Shuswap metamorphic complex as far east as the east-vergent Columbia River–Slocan Lake fault zones.