40Ar/39Ar ages of rocks collected from the Passage Canal area, Seward D-7 Quadrangle, Alaska
Description
This report presents 40Ar/39Ar step-heating geochronology results from a single outcrop of a mineralized near-trench intrusion exposed in a road cut near Whittier, Alaska. The outcrop is the best road-accessible occurrence of a Tertiary near-trench pluton in the region and is commonly visited by field trips, yet no prior geochronological data from this outcrop have been published. Two chronologically distinct intrusive bodies, the Paleogene Sanak-Baranof belt and the Eshamy-suite, are documented in the upper Cook Inlet area. Geochronological analysis of the two samples described in this report confirms that the Whittier road-cut intrusion and veins are coeval (53.0 +/- 0.3 Ma and 50.9 +/- 0.2 Ma, respectively) with the Sanak-Baranof suite and not the younger, Eshamy plutonic suite. Analyses were performed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geochronology Laboratory, and results were reported by Jeff Benowitz and Paul Layer. Products included in this data release are a summary of sample collection methods, the laboratory report, analytical data tables and associated metadata, and plots of the 40Ar/39Ar age spectra and Ca/K and Cl/K ratios.