newinsightsintoarctictectonicsfromdetritalzircon.docVIP

New Insights into Arctic Paleogeography and Tectonics from U-Pb Detrital Zircon Geochronology Elizabeth L. Miller1, Jaime Toro2, George Gehrels3, Jeffrey M. Amato4, Andrei Prokopiev5, Marianna Tuchkova6, Vyacheslav V. Akinin7, Trevor A. Dumitru1, Thomas E. Moore8, Ashton Embry9 and Michael P. Cecile9 1 Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA 2 Department of Geology and Geography, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV, USA 3 Department of Geosciences, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 4 Department of Geological Sciences, New Mexico State Univ., MSC 3AB, PO Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM, USA 5Diamond and Precious Metal Geology Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk, Russian Federation 6Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation 7Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russian Federation 8U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA, USA 9Geological Survey of Canada, Calgary, Alberta, Canada ABSTRACT In order to test existing models for the formation of the Amerasian Basin of the Arctic, detrital zircon suites from 12 samples of Triassic sandstone from the circum-Arctic region were dated by laser ablation-ICPMS. Triassic successions represent the last major phase of regional deposition in the Arctic prior to the formation of the Amerasian Basin. Detrital zircon samples from the northern Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt (Siberia), from Chukotka and Wrangel Island (NE Russia), and from northwestern Alaska have similar age distributions distinguished by Carboniferous and Permo-Triassic peaks. In contrast, samples from further east in Alaska and Canada (Sadlerochit Mts. and Sverdrup Basin) are dominated by Cambro-Ordovician, or Proterozoic zircons. The samples from Chukotka most closely resemble those from the Verkhoyansk. The current most popular reconstruction of the Amerasian Basin involves counter-clockwise rotation of Arctic Alaska and Chukotka away from the Canadian Arctic margin. Although this sa