Stratigraphy and regional implications of unstrained Devono-Mississippian volcanic rocks in the Money Creek thrust sheet, Yukon-Tanana Terrane, southeastern Yukon
Description
Relatively unstrained Devonian-Mississippian volcanic and volcano-sedimentary rocks have been documented in the Money Creek thrust sheet in Finlayson Lake map area. The succession comprises a five-unit volcanic stratigraphy containing subaerial and subaqueous mafic and felsic volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks and associated sedimentary rocks that are underlain, and locally crosscut by, sub-volcanic mafic intrusions and quartz porphyritic granite. Magma-mingling relationships between mafic dykes and quartz-porphyritic granite suggest that mafic and felsic volcanism was broadly coeval. A published 360.5 ± 1 Ma U-Pb date on a quartz porphyritic granitic intrusion establishes the age of volcanism.
Biotite-hornblende granitic rocks of the Simpson Range Plutonic Suite (SRPS) intrude and metamorphose the volcanic sequence and related sub-volcanic intrusive rocks, and coupled with previously published U-Pb dates (345-350 Ma), this relationship implies that the SRPS is a distinctly younger pulse of magmatism.
Mafic and ultramafic rocks of the Money Creek thrust sheet have previously been correlated with the Pennsylvanian-Permian Campbell Range belt and together both have been considered part of the Anvil Allochthon or Slide Mountain Terrane. Field characteristics, age, and geochemistry show that neither correlation is valid.