Elsevier

Precambrian Research

Volume 345, August 2020, 105774
Precambrian Research

New geochronological evidences of late Neoarchean and late Paleoproterozoic tectono-metamorphic events in the Miyun area, North China Craton

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precamres.2020.105774Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Miyun area records late Archean and late Palaeoproterozoic metamorphic events.

  • Dating of zircon, monazite, hornblende and biotite confirms these events.

  • These two events are ascribed to granulite and amphibolite facies, respectively.

Abstract

The Miyun area is located in the western margin of the Eastern Block of the North China Craton (NCC), and granulite- to amphibolite facies tectono-metamorphic events occurred in the Precambrian. In this contribution, high-resolution secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) U-Pb dating of metamorphic zircon from garnet-pyroxene amphibolite yielded the metamorphic age of 2507 ± 4 Ma. SIMS U-Pb dating of monazite from garnet-biotite gneiss yielded the metamorphic ages of 2496 ± 16 Ma and 1834 ± 21 Ma, respectively. Furthermore, 40Ar/39Ar dating of hornblende from amphibolite yielded plateau ages of 1817 ± 41–1795 ± 19 Ma, and the biotite yielded a plateau age of 1744 ± 12 Ma. Combined with previous studies and the closure temperatures of the dating minerals, it is inferred that the Miyun area experienced a late Neoarchean granulite-facies metamorphic event occurred at ~2.50 Ga, followed by a late Paleoproterozoic amphibolite-facies metamorphic event occurred at ~1.83–1.74 Ga. These two tectono-metamorphic events are ascribed to the Precambrian orogenic-related environments.

Introduction

Superimposed metamorphism is a challenging topic in the field of metamorphic geology, and it is difficult to match the different coexisting mineral assemblages formed at the different tectono-metamorphic events, P-T paths and timing of each metamorphic-tectonic event. Therefore, detailed geochronological study is extremely necessary to reveal the metamorphic history in superimposed metamorphic terranes. As one of the most popular dating minerals, zircon is widespread in many types of metamorphic rocks and has high closure temperature (~900 °C) of its U-Pb isotopic system (Cherniak and Watson, 2000, Lee et al., 1997). Furthermore, zircon can record early metamorphic information and its U-Pb system can hardly be disturbed by later thermal events. However, it is difficult for zircon to grow at granulite facies metamorphic event if it has experienced an earlier metamorphic event, because the granulite facies rocks are always devoid of fluid after the earlier metamorphism (c.f., Liu, 2018 and references therein). On the other hand, other minerals such as monazite, hornblende and biotite, are also important and effective to reveal more geochronological clues in dating metamorphic events.

The North China Craton (NCC), as one of the oldest cratons in the world, widely records the metamorphic and tectonic events of the late Neoarchean and late Paleoproterozoic (Cai et al., 2014, Jin et al., 2000, Krӧner et al., 1998, Liu et al., 2019, Lu et al., 2017a, Lu et al., 2017b, Shi et al., 2012, Wang et al., 2019c, Wei, 2018, Xiao et al., 2011, Zhang et al., 2019, Zhao et al., 1998, Zhao et al., 2005). Several amalgamation tectonic schemes of the NCC have been proposed (Faure et al., 2007, Kusky and Li, 2003, Kusky and Li, 2010, Kusky and Mooney, 2015, Kusky et al., 2016, Trap et al., 2007, Trap et al., 2012, Zhai and Santosh, 2011, Zhai et al., 2000, Zhai et al., 2005, Zhao and Guo, 2012, Zhao et al., 1998, Zhao et al., 2001a, Zhao et al., 2001b, Zhao et al., 2005, Zhao et al., 2012). Zhao et al., 1998, Zhao et al., 2001a, Zhao et al., 2001b, Zhao et al., 2005, Zhao et al., 2012) divided the basement rocks of the NCC into the Eastern Block, the Western Block as well as the nearly NS-striking Palaeoproterozoic Trans-North China Orogen (TNCO) between the Eastern and Western Blocks, and argues that the collision of these two blocks along the TNCO took place at ~1.85 Ga. Other researchers believed that the NCC amalgamation event occurred at ~2.5 Ga and the tectonics of the NCC became extensional at ~1.85 Ga (Kusky and Li, 2003, Kusky and Li, 2010, Kusky and Mooney, 2015, Kusky et al., 2016). Zhai et al., 2000, Zhai et al., 2005) advocated that the NCC was formed from the amalgamation of different micro-blocks at ~2.5 Ga. In addition, some people proposed that the two stages of amalgamation between the arc and the block occurred at ~2.1 Ga and ~1.85 Ga, respectively (Faure et al., 2007, Trap et al., 2007, Trap et al., 2012). One of the crucial reasons leading to these controversies is due to lack of detailed geochronological research, especially the age data from different dating minerals.

The Miyun area is located in the northwestern border of the TNCO, and is an ideal window to study the metamorphic and tectonic events of the NCC. Present studies of the Miyun metamorphic rocks mainly focus on the petrological characteristics, metamorphic evolutions, and geochemical features (Han et al., 2018, He et al., 1994, Lu et al., 1979, Lu et al., 1981, Lu et al., 1984, Shi and Zhao, 2017, Tang et al., 2019, Zhang et al., 2019). Although metamorphic ages of ~2.5 Ga were widely reported from granulite, amphibolite, and gneiss in this region (Shi and Zhao, 2017, Shi and Shi, 2016, Tang et al., 2019, Zhang et al., 2019), the dating were mostly done on zircon U-Pb analyses. As different minerals have different isotopic closure temperatures, various dating minerals and methods are crucial to reveal the metamorphic and tectonic evolution. However, almost no metamorphic age data from other minerals have been reported. Our dating of monazite, zircon, hornblende and biotite helps to obtain different metamorphic times recorded in garnet-bearing granulite and amphibolite in the Miyun area, which provide more geochronological evidences for deciphering the metamorphic and tectonic evolution of this area.

Section snippets

Geological setting and sample locations

The Eastern and Western Blocks of the NCC are late Archean metamorphic basement while the TNCO is a late Paleoproterozoic orogenic belt (Fig. 1; Zhao and Guo, 2012, Zhao et al., 1998, Zhao et al., 2001a, Zhao et al., 2001b, Zhao et al., 2002, Zhao et al., 2005, Zhao et al., 2012). The basement rocks mainly include Eoarchean (Liu et al., 2007, Liu et al., 2013, Wan et al., 2005, Wan et al., 2009, Wan et al., 2015) to Paleoproterozoic tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG) gneiss, granulite,

Petrography

The garnet-biotite gneiss occurs as interlayers with garnet-bearing amphibolite and granulite and has quartz + feldspar leucosome resulted from migmatization (Fig. 3a,b). The garnet-pyroxene amphibolite occurs as rocky hills or interlayers with or without gneissosity (Fig. 3c–f).

The garnet-biotite gneiss (16MY08) comprises of garnet (10–15%) + orthopyroxene (~10%) + biotite (~15%) + plagioclase (20–25%) + K-feldspar (5–10%) + quartz (20–25%), and accessory minerals of

Electron microprobe analysis

Compositional analysis of representative minerals as well as X-ray mapping of monazite were carried out using an electron microprobe analyzer (JOEL JXA 8230) at the School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, China. For the compositional analysis of minerals, the accelerating voltage and the beam current were 15 kV, 20nA, respectively. The electron beam diameter was 3–5 μm and the counting time was 10–20 s. Natural minerals were utilized as standards. The

Mineral chemistry

The representative mineral composition of garnet-biotite gneiss sample 16MY08 has been reported in Zhang et al. (2019) and the mineral composition features of garnet-pyroxene amphibolite are described below.

Metamorphic P-T conditions

The metamorphic peak P-T conditions of garnet-biotite gneiss are 6–8 kbar/680–750 °C (Zhang et al., 2019). The metamorphic peak P-T conditions of garnet-pyroxene amphibolite were determined by the garnet-clinopyroxene (GC) geothermometer (Ravna, 2000) paired with the garnet-clinopyroxene-plagioclase-quartz (GCPQ) geobarometer (Eckert et al., 1991). The clinopyroxene-orthopyroxene (CO) geothermometer coupled with the clinopyroxene-plagioclase-quartz (CPQ) geobarometer (McCarthy and Patiňo Douce,

SIMS U-Pb age of monazite

Monazite crystals from garnet-biotite gneiss sample 16MY08 are typically irregular in shape and 80–120 μm across (Fig. 5a). Backscattered electron (BSE) images show some monazite grains are zoned. BSE images display that most monazite grains have irregular dark cores surrounded by brighter rims, except for some grains exhibiting homogenous or irregular textures. The dark or homogenous monazite grains have U concentrations in the range of 0.11%–2.00% with Th/U ratios of 3.2–63.3 and the bright

The late Neoarchean metamorphic event

The late Neoarchean is an important period of magmatism and metamorphism in the NCC (Krӧner et al., 1998, Lu et al., 2017b, Shi et al., 2012, Wan et al., 2015, Wang and Guo, 2017, Wang et al., 2016, Wang et al., 2019b, Wei, 2018, Wu et al., 2012, Zhang et al., 2019). Metamorphic ages of late Neoarchean basement rocks of the Eastern Block are between 2.55 Ga and 2.44 Ga (Duan et al., 2015, Duan et al., 2017, Duan et al., 2019, Krӧner et al., 1998, Liu and Wei, 2018, Lu et al., 2017b, Shi et al.,

Conclusions

  • (1)

    SIMS U-Pb ages of zircon in the garnet-pyroxene amphibolite as well as monazite in garnet-biotite gneiss suggest that the late Neoarchean metamorphism took place at ~2.5 Ga, indicating a collisional event in the Miyun area.

  • (2)

    SIMS U-Pb ages of monazite and 40Ar/39Ar ages of hornblende and biotite imply that the Paleoproterozoic metamorphism occurred during 1.83–1.74 Ga in the Miyun area.

  • (3)

    Combined with previous studies and the closure temperatures of dating minerals, it is inferred that granulite

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Prof. Qiu-Li Li, Dr. Xiao-Xiao Ling and Miss Jiao Li for their guidance of the SIMS experiment. We also thank Prof. Yong-Hong Shi, Hefei University of Technology, for his assistance in electronic microprobe analyses. We benefit a lot from the guidance and discussion with Professors Yi Chen, Jing-Bo Liu, Jing-Hui Guo, Quan-Ren Yan and Shu-Juan Jiao. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41890832, 41672183) and the Key Research

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