William R. Guenthner

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Peter W. Reiners

Planetary Science Institute

David A. Grimley

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Jessica L. Conroy

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Olivia G. Thurston

Norwich University Applied Research Institute

Jenna Kaempfer

Utah State University

Michael S. DeLucia

College of Charleston

Stephen Marshak

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Karl E. Karlstrom

University of New Mexico

Jason W. Ricketts

The University of Texas at El Paso

Alexis K. Ault

Utah State University

Cooperative Institutions

United States Geological Survey

University of Arizona

Planetary Science Institute

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Denver Federal Center

Chinese Academy of Sciences

University of California, Berkeley

Columbia University

The University of Texas at Austin

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

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Alpha-Recoil Damage Annealing Effecfs on Zircon Crystallinity and He Diffusivity: Improving Damage-Diffusivity Models

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (2017)

Olivia G. Thurston William R. Guenthner John I. Garver

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Episodic deposition of Illinois Valley Peoria silt in association with Lake Michigan Lobe fluctuations during the last glacial maximum

Quaternary Research (2017)

T. Andrew Nash Jessica L. Conroy David A. Grimley William R. Guenthner B. Brandon Curry

Abstract The chronology and cause of millennial depositional oscillations within last glacial loess of the Central Lowlands of the United States are uncertain. Here, we present a new age model that indicates the Peoria Silt along the Illinois River Valley accumulated episodically from ~28,500 to 16,000 cal yr BP, as the Lake Michigan Lobe margin fluctuated within northeastern Illinois. The age model indicates accelerated loess deposition coincident with regional glacial advances during the local last glacial maximum. A weakly developed paleosol, the Jules Geosol, represents a period of significantly slower deposition, from 23,700 to 22,000 cal yr BP. A gastropod assemblage-based reconstruction of mean July temperature shows temperatures 6–10 ° C cooler than modern during Peoria Silt deposition. Stable oxygen and carbon isotope values (δ 18 O and δ 13 C) of gastropod carbonate do not vary significantly across the pedostratigraphic boundary of the Jules Geosol, suggesting slower loess accumulation was a result of reduced glacial sediment supply rather than direct climatic factors. However, a decrease in δ 18 O values occurred between 26,000 and 24,000 cal yr BP, synchronous with the Lake Michigan Lobe’s southernmost advance. This δ 18 O decrease suggests a coupling of regional summer hydroclimate and ice lobe position during the late glacial period.

Last Glacial Maximum

Silt

Glacial lake

Deposition

Deglaciation

Chronology

10.1017/qua.2017.66

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Citations (21)

Orogens of Big Sky Country: Reconstructing the Deep-Time Tectonothermal History of the Beartooth Mountains, Montana and Wyoming, USA (Supporting Information)

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (2022)

Chance Ronemus Devon A. Orme William R. Guenthner Stephen E. Cox Christopher Kussmaul

Supporting datasets for Ronemus et al., "Orogens of Big Sky Country: Reconstructing the Deep-Time Tectonothermal History of the Beartooth Mountains, Montana and Wyoming, USA" in review at Tectonics as of August 16, 2022. Dataset S1. Detailed analytical settings and data for zircon U-Pb geochronology Dataset S2. Biotite ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar analytic results Dataset S3. Zircon (U-Th)/He analytic results Dataset S4. Apatite and zircon grain photomicrographs with measurements Dataset S5. Apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He analytic results Dataset S6. QTQt input and results files Datasets S1, S2, S3, and S5 are also available in the Tectonics submission supporting information.

10.5281/zenodo.6987390

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Orogens of Big Sky Country: Reconstructing the Deep-Time Tectonothermal History of the Beartooth Mountains, Montana and Wyoming, USA (Supporting Information)

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (2022)

Chance Ronemus Devon A. Orme William R. Guenthner Stephen E. Cox Christopher Kussmaul

10.5281/zenodo.6987391

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Westerly surface winds across eastern and mid-continental North America during the Last Glacial Maximum

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (2019)

Jessica L. Conroy Christina Karamperidou David A. Grimley William R. Guenthner

Westerlies

Last Glacial Maximum

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Proterozoic to Phanerozoic Tectonism in Southwestern Montana Basement Ranges Constrained by Low Temperature Thermochronometric Data

Tectonics (2021)

Jenna Kaempfer William R. Guenthner David Pearson

Abstract Crystalline basement rocks of southwestern Montana have been subjected to multiple tectonothermal events since ∼3.3 Ga: the Paleoproterozoic Big Sky/Great Falls orogeny, Mesoproterozoic extension associated with Belt‐Purcell basin formation, Neoproterozoic extension related to Rodinia rifting, and the late Phanerozoic Sevier‐Laramide orogeny. We investigated the long‐term (>1 Ga), low‐temperature (erosion/burial within 10 km of the surface) thermal histories of these tectonic events with zircon and apatite (U‐Th)/He thermochronology. Data were collected across nine sample localities ( n = 55 zircon and n = 26 apatite aliquots) in the northern and southern Madison ranges, the Blacktail‐Snowcrest arch, and the Tobacco Root uplift. Our zircon (U‐Th)/He data show negative trends between single aliquot date and effective uranium (a radiation damage proxy), which we interpreted with a thermal history model that considers the damage‐He diffusivity relationship in zircon. Our model results for these basement ranges show substantial cooling from temperatures above 400°C to near surface conditions between 800 and 510 Ma. Subsequent Phanerozoic exhumation culminated by ∼75 Ma. Late Phanerozoic cooling is coincident with along‐strike Sevier belt thin‐skinned thrusting in southeastern Idaho, and older than exhumation in basement‐involved uplifts of the Wyoming Laramide province. Our long‐term, low‐temperature thermal record for these southwestern Montana basement ranges shows that: (a) these basement blocks have experienced multiple episodes of upper crustal exhumation and burial since Archean time, possibly influencing Phanerozoic thrust architecture and (b) the late Phanerozoic thick‐skinned thrusting recorded by these rocks is among the earliest thermochronologic records of Laramide basement‐involved shortening and was concomitant with Sevier belt thin‐skinned thrusting.

Thermochronology

Basement

Rodinia

Orogeny

10.1029/2021tc006744

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An Appraisal of Zircon (U-Th)/He Thermochronology for Deep-Time (>1 Ga) Thermal Histories: Progress and Remaining Challenges

William R. Guenthner Olivia G. Thurston Jenna Kaempfer Ryan Owen Sigat Oladipupo Babarinde

Thermochronology

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Slab window migration and terrane accretion preserved by low‐temperature thermochronology of a magmatic arc, northern Antarctic Peninsula

Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems (2010)

William R. Guenthner David L. Barbeau Peter W. Reiners Stuart N. Thomson

Existing paleogeographic reconstructions indicate that the northern Antarctic Peninsula was central to several Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonic events that have implications for ocean circulation and continental margin evolution. To evaluate the exhumational record of these processes, we collected new samples and measured fission track and (U‐Th)/He cooling ages of apatite and zircon from 13 Jurassic and Cretaceous granitoids in western Graham Land between the northern tip of the peninsula and the Antarctic Circle. Apatite He data reveal distinct ages and systematic age patterns north and south of Anvers Island, near the midpoint of the study area: To the south, apatite He ages range from 16 to 8 Ma and young northward, whereas to the north they range between 65 and 24 Ma (with one exception at 11 Ma) and young southward. Thermal histories inferred from the ages and closure temperatures of multiple thermochronometers in single samples indicate distinct histories for northern and southern Graham Land. Northern sites reveal a Late Cretaceous pulse of rapid cooling (>7°C/Myr) followed by very slow cooling (∼1°C/Myr) to the Recent, whereas southern sites record either a pulse of rapid mid‐Miocene cooling (∼8°C/Myr) or steady and moderate cooling (∼3°C/Myr) from the Late Cretaceous to the Recent. We interpret the Late Cretaceous rapid cooling in the northern part of the study area as a possible manifestation of terrane accretion associated with the Palmer Land event. We interpret the systematic spatial trends in apatite He ages and contrasting thermal histories along the peninsula as recording progressive Late Cenozoic northward opening of a slab window south of Anvers Island. This is consistent with a time transgressive pulse of ∼2–3 km of rock uplift and exhumation in the upper plate following ridge‐trench collision, cessation of subduction, and opening of the slab window, presumably caused by increased asthenospheric upwelling beneath the overriding plate.

Thermochronology

Fission track dating

10.1029/2009gc002765

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Zircon (U-Th)/He thermochronology of Grand Canyon resolves 1250 Ma unroofing at the Great Unconformity and <20 Ma canyon carving

Geology (2021)

Olivia G. Thurston William R. Guenthner Karl E. Karlstrom Jason W. Ricketts Matthew T. Heizler

Abstract Our study used zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) thermochronology to resolve cooling events of Precambrian basement below the Great Unconformity surface in the eastern Grand Canyon, United States. We combined new ZHe data with previous thermochronometric results to model the <250 °C thermal history of Precambrian basement over the past >1 Ga. Inverse models of ZHe date-effective uranium (eU) concentration, a relative measure of radiation damage that influences closure temperature, utilize He diffusion and damage annealing and suggest that the main phase of Precambrian cooling to <200 °C was between 1300 and 1250 Ma. This result agrees with mica and potassium feldspar 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology showing rapid post–1400 Ma cooling, and both are consistent with the 1255 Ma depositional age for the Unkar Group. At the young end of the timescale, our data and models are also highly sensitive to late-stage reheating due to burial beneath ∼3–4 km of Phanerozoic strata prior to ca. 60 Ma; models that best match observed date-eU trends show maximum temperatures of 140–160 °C, in agreement with apatite (U-Th)/He and fission-track data. Inverse models also support multi-stage Cenozoic cooling, with post–20 Ma cooling from ∼80 to 20 °C reflecting partial carving of the eastern Grand Canyon, and late rapid cooling indicated by 3–7 Ma ZHe dates over a wide range of high eU. Our ZHe data resolve major basement exhumation below the Great Unconformity during the Mesoproterozoic (1300–1250 Ma), and “young” (20–0 Ma) carving of Grand Canyon, but show little sensitivity to Neoproterozoic and Cambrian basement unroofing components of the composite Great Unconformity.

Thermochronology

Fission track dating

Closure temperature

Basement

10.1130/g48699.1

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Citations (7)

Low-temperature thermochronometric insight into the long-term burial and erosional evolution of the Bundelkhand craton of central India

EGUGA (2019)

Cody Colleps N. Ryan McKenzie William R. Guenthner Мукунд Шарма Daniel F. Stöckli

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