Using discordant U-Pb zircon data to re-evaluate the El Paso terrane: Late Paleozoic tectonomagmatic evolution of east-central California (USA) and intense hydrothermal activity in the Jurassic Sierra Nevada arc

Quantitative modeling of discordant detrital zircon U-Pb isotope data from the northern El Paso terrane reveals metamorphosed Laurentian passive-margin strata within the Kern Plateau (southeastern Sierra Nevada), resolving a 40-year-long debate regarding this terrane’s origin. Previous studies of Kern Plateau pendants identify deep-water metasediments containing detrital zircon populations similar to the Roberts Mountains allochthon; yet structural observations seemingly contradict proposed correlations to the Mississippian Roberts Mountains thrust, which juxtaposes exotic deep-water rocks over shallow-water, passive-margin strata in central Nevada. Here, new samples are combined with published data to identify segments of the thrust within the Kern Plateau, demonstrating that the El Paso terrane was offset ~350 km by late Paleozoic sinistral translation along the braided Kern Plateau shear zone, an abandoned model first proposed more than 20 years ago. New U-Pb-Hf isotope data from plutons intruding the Kern Plateau shear zone are virtually identical to published data from the El Paso Mountains, indicating that the Sierra Nevada–Mojave arc initiated in the late Early Permian (ca. 274 Ma) along the entire length of the El Paso terrane and was active into the Middle Triassic (ca. 240 Ma). Previously implicated Late Triassic arc activity within the Kern Plateau is not corroborated by single-crystal U-Pb data. Published structural evidence indicating reactivation of the late Paleozoic Kern Plateau shear zone is reinterpreted as indicating sinistral-oblique relative plate motion during Permian arc initiation followed by Middle Jurassic extension in the southeastern Sierra Nevada arc, which facilitated intense hydrothermal activity and zircon lead loss.