Wrangellia flood basalts in Alaska, Yukon, and British Columbia : exploring the growth and magmatic history of late Triassic oceanic plateau

• Main Author: Greene, Andrew R.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5282

The Wrangellia flood basalts are parts of an oceanic plateau that formed in the eastern Panthalassic Ocean (ca. 230-225 Ma). The volcanic stratigraphy presently extends >2300 km in British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. The field relationships, age, and geochemistry have been examined to provide constraints on the construction of oceanic plateaus, duration of volcanism, source of magmas, and the conditions of melting and magmatic evolution for the volcanic stratigraphy. Wrangellia basalts on Vancouver Island (Karmutsen Formation) form an emergent sequence consisting of basal sills, submarine flows (>3 km), pillow breccia and hyaloclastite (<1 1cm), and subaerial flows (>1.5 km). Karmutsen stratigraphy overlies Devonian to Permian volcanic arc (~380-355 Ma) and sedimentary sequences and is overlain by Late Triassic limestone. The Karmutsen basalts are predominantly homogeneous tholeiitic basalt (6-8 wt% MgO); however, the submarine part of the stratigraphy, on northern Vancouver Island, contains picritic pillow basalts (9-20 wt% MgO). Both lava groups have overlapping initial EHf and ENd, indicating a common, ocean island basalt (OIB)-type Pacific mantle source similar to the source of basalts from the Ontong Java and Caribbean Plateaus. The major-element chemistry of picrites indicates extensive melting (23-27%) of anomalously hot mantle (~1500°C), which is consistent with an origin from a mantle plume head. Wrangellia basalts extend ~450 km across southern Alaska (Wrangell Mountains and Alaska Range) and through southwest Yukon where <3.5 km of mostly subaerial flows (Nikolai Formation) are bounded by Pennsylvanian to Permian volcanic (312-280 Ma) and sedimentary strata, and Late Triassic limestone. The vast majority of the Nikolai basalts are LREE-enriched high-Ti basalt (1.6-2.4 wt% Ti0₂) with uniform plume-type Pacific mantle isotopic compositions. However, the lowest ~400 m of stratigraphy in the Alaska Range, and lower stratigraphy in Yukon, is light rare earth element (LREE) depleted low-Ti basalt (0.4-1.2 wt% Ti0₂) with pronounced negative-HFSE anomalies and high Elf values that are decoupled from Nd and displaced well above the OIB mantle array. The low-Ti basalts indicate subduction-modified mantle was involved in the formation of basalts exposed in Alaska and Yukon, possibly from mechanical and thermal erosion of the base of the lithosphere from an impinging mantle plume head.