The Columbia Plateau, Oregon Plateau, Snake River Plain, and Northern Nevada Rift compose a single magmatic system containing all the essential characteristics ascribed to a mantle plume genesis. A mobile mantle is delineated by volcanic migrations, divisible into two types: (1) Rapid, radial migrations (∼10–100 cm/yr) are associated with impingement and spreading of the Yellowstone plume head along the Chief Joseph, Steens Mountain–Picture Gorge, and Northern Nevada Rift magmatic trends from ∼16.6 to 15.0 Ma. (2) Subsequent (post‐15.0 Ma), slower migrations (1–5 cm/yr) are associated with shearing off of the plume head, generating the Snake River Plain hot spot track above the plume tail, and with westward asthenospheric drag of the plume head beneath the Oregon Plateau. The plume head provided a melt component to Imnaha and Grande Ronde Basalts. Depleted mantle lithosphere lying above the plume head provided a melt component to Steens Basalt and Picture Gorge Basalt and to younger eruptions of high‐alumina olivine tholeiite. The plume head currently resides beneath a broad lithospheric swell, marked by young volcanism, high heat flow, and slow P wave travel times. The periphery of the plume head is delineated by the cratonic margin to the east, a gravity discontinuity and a set of wrinkle ridges to the north, and a prominent belt of young high‐alumina olivine tholeiites and active volcanoes adjacent to the Cascade volcanic arc to the west.
Abstract Field, geochemical, and geochronological data show that the southern segment of the ancestral Cascades arc advanced into the Oregon back‐arc region from 30 to 20 Ma. We attribute this event to thermal uplift of the Farallon slab by the Yellowstone mantle plume, with heat diffusion, decompression, and the release of volatiles promoting high‐K calc‐alkaline volcanism throughout the back‐arc region. The greatest degree of heating is expressed at the surface by a broad ENE‐trending zone of adakites and related rocks generated by melting of oceanic crust from the Farallon slab. A hiatus in eruptive activity began at ca. 22–20 Ma but ended abruptly at 16.7 Ma with renewed volcanism from slab rupture occurring in two separate regions. The eastern rupture resulted in the extrusion of Steens Basalt during the ascent and melting of a dry mantle (plume) source contaminated with depleted mantle. The contemporaneous western rupture resulted in renewed subduction, melting of a wet mantle source, and the rejuvenation of high‐K calc‐alkaline volcanism near the Nevada‐California border at 16.7 Ma. Here the initiation of slab rollback is evident in the westward migration of arc volcanism at 7.8 km/Ma. Today, the uplifted slab is largely missing beneath the Oregon back‐arc region, replaced instead by a seismic hole that is bound on the south by the adakite hot spot track. We attribute slab destruction to thermal uplift and mechanical dislocation that culminated in rapid tearing of the slab from 17–15 Ma and possible foundering and sinking of slab segments from 16 to 10 Ma.
As a contribution to the plume-nonplume debate we review the tectonic setting in which huge volumes of monotonous tholeiite of the Columbia River flood basalt province of the Pacific Northwest, USA, were erupted. We record the timescale and the locations of these eruptions and estimates of individual eruption volumes, and we discuss the mechanisms of sheet-flow emplacement, all of which bear on the ultimate origin of the province. An exceptionally large chemical and isotopic database is used to identify the various mantle sources of the basalt and their subsequent evolution in large lower-crustal magma chambers. We conclude by discussing the...
A 2.4 m-thick megacryst- and xenolith-rich camptonite dyke briefly exposed during excavation of a subway station at Porter Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was sampled for petrological study and radiometric dating to constrain its age. The sample yielded a well-defined 40Ar/39Ar age of 246 ± 4 Ma using separates prepared from a ferro-kaersutite mega-phenocryst. This age is the oldest yet reported for a Coastal New England province lamprophyric dyke. The dyke likely reflects regional extension in Avalonia during the initial rifting stage of Pangea to form the North Atlantic Ocean basin. This new age further confirms that mantle upwelling began early in the Late Permian to Triassic as a precursor to the breakup of Pangea some 40 million years later.
RÉSUMÉ
Au cours de travaux d’excavation d’une station de métro à Porter Square, à Cambridge, au Massachusetts, un dyke de campronite d’une épaisseur de 2,4 m composé de mégacristaux et riche en xénolite a été exposé brièvement. On y a prélevé un échantillon aux fins d’une étude pétrologique et d’une datation par radiométrie. Par la méthode 40Ar/39Ar, il a été possible de déterminer avec relativement de précision un âge de 246 ± 4 Ma, grâce à des fractions obtenues par préparation d’un mégaphénocristal de ferro-kaersutite. Il s’agit de la plus ancienne datation établie pour un dyke lamprophyrique de la province géologique du littoral de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Ce dyke rendrait vraisemblablement compte de l’extension régionale de l’Avalonien au cours du stade initial de distension de la masse continentale de Pangée, qui allait entraîner la création du bassin océanique de l’Atlantique Nord. Cette nouvelle datation vient confirmer une fois de plus que la remontée du manteau terrestre a débuté très tôt entre la fin du Permien et le Trias, cet événement géomorphologique annonçant le fractionnement ultérieur du continent de Pangée quelque 40 millions d’années plus tard.[Traduit par la redaction]
Recent mapping of flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group between Lewiston and Pomeroy, southeast Washington, places the chemically distinctive Shumaker Creek flow as a new member between the Frenchman Springs and Roza members of the Wanapum Basalt. This leaves the Eckler Mountain Formation composed of only the Robinette Mountain and Dodge chemical types, with the Lookingglass flow forming the base of the overlying Wanapum Basalt. One Robinette Mountain flow and five separate flows of Dodge composition are recognized and traced across the Blue Mountains Anticline of southeast Washington and northeast Oregon. The aerial distribution of the flows is used to constrain the onset of deformation in the Blue Mountains area between the Hite and Limekiln faults. A series of open east–west folds formed during late Wanapum and Saddle Mountains time, cut by northeast-trending faults with left-lateral strain. Chemical variations between Eckler Mountain, Grande Ronde, and Wanapum Basalt flows require different source components. But between the Eckler Mountain flows the variation of most chemical parameters is consistent with fractional crystallization in the crust and can be modeled for major and trace elements. An exception is the behaviour of Cr and Zr/Y between the Robinette Mountain and Dodge flows, which suggests variable partial melting or possibly olivine accumulation.
The northeast-trending composite swarm of Mesozoic mafic dikes in eastern Massachusetts consists of tholeiitic olivine dolerites, transitional-alkalic dolerites, alkaline dolerites, and alkaline lamprophyres. Chemical subtypes thus far identified among the dolerites include dikes relatively high (>9.00 wt%) or low in MgO as well as dikes having relatively low TiO2(<3.00 wt%) and low P2O5 (<1.00 wt%) contents. The low-MgO dolerites also include high-TiO2 and high-P2O5 varieties.
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