Jura-Cretaceous synorogenic magmatism and relations to supercontinental rifting in the northwestern U.S. Cordillera

Abstract

Changes in lithospheric composition and strength associated with rifting of the Rodinian supercontinent (ca. 780−485 Ma) served to localize Mesozoic tectonic activity in the McCall region of west-central Idaho, USA. Although discrimination diagrams support slab failure melting, ca. 150−121 Ma calcic magmatism in the Hazard Creek complex and chemically similar intrusive rocks of northeastern Oregon, USA (e.g., Cornucopia stock), is best explained by progressive loading of oceanic crust. Westward-directed thrusting across the Laurentian continental margin and adjacent island-arc terranes (Olds Ferry/Wallowa; Blue Mountains province) led to partial melting of metabasaltic source rocks at pressures and depths sufficient for garnet stability (>10 kbar, ∼35 km). Early pluton emplacement during right-oblique arc−continent collision overlapped in time with subduction zone reorganization, which involved a change in dip direction (westward to eastward) under the accreting Blue Mountains block. Ensuing magmatic activity predated and was concurrent with ca. 116 Ma thrust reactivation of the Wallowa/Olds Ferry boundary, which temporally overlapped with contractional deformation along the terrane−continent accretionary boundary. Later synorogenic magmatism was focused along the accretionary boundary, where rising anatectic melts were caught between the eastward-impinging/northward-migrating (obliquely colliding) terrane block and continental margin backstop (Rodinian rift architecture). Middle Cretaceous dextral transpression viewed in this manner precludes the need for an outboard “hit-and-run” collider (Insular superterrane) and thus, a post-accretion shear zone in western Idaho.