Visualizing the sedimentary response through the orogenic cycle using multi-dimensional scaling

Abstract:

Changing patterns in detrital provenance through time have the ability to resolve salient features of an orogenic cycle. Such changes in the age spectrum of detrital minerals can be attributed to fluctuations in the geodynamic regime (e.g. opening of seaways, initiation of subduction and arc magmatism, and transition from subduction to collisional tectonics with arrival of exotic crustal material). These processes manifest themselves through a variety of sedimentary responses due to basin formation, transition from rift to drift sedimentation, or inversion and basement unroofing. This generally is charted by the presence of older detrital zircon populations during basement unroofing events and is followed by a successive younging in the detrital zircon age signature either through arrival of young island arc terranes or the progression of subduction magmatism along a continental margin. The sedimentary response to the aforementioned geodynamic environment can be visualized using a multi-dimensional scaling approach to detrital zircon age spectra. This statistical tool characterizes the “dissimilarity” of age spectra of the various sedimentary successions, but importantly also charts this measure through time.

We present three case studies in which multi-dimensional scaling reveals additional useful information on the style of basin evolution within the orogenic cycle. The Albany-Fraser Orogeny in Western Australia and Grenville Orogeny (sensu stricto) in Laurentia demonstrate clear patterns in which detrital zircon age spectra become more dissimilar with time. In stark contrast, sedimentary successions from the Meso- to Neoproterozoic North Atlantic Region reveal no consistent pattern. Rather, the North Atlantic Region reflects a signature consistent with significant zircon age communication due to a distal position from an orogenic front, oblique translation of terranes, and complexity of the continental margin.

This statistical approach provides a mechanism to connect the evolutionary patterns of detrital zircon age spectra to the geodynamics of an orogenic system, which in many cases is a direct function of proximity to the orogenic front.