Using Detrital-Zircon Geochronology and (U-Th)/He Thermochronology to Re-evaluate the Triassic-Jurassic Tectonic Setting of Northern Laurentia, Canadian Arctic

Abstract

New geochronological and field data were examined from Triassic-Jurassic strata in the Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada. Detailed analysis of detrital-zircon data identified a pronounced near-syndepositional age-fraction in Triassic strata, which significantly is absent in Jurassic strata of the Sverdrup Basin suggesting a protracted history of magmatism and sediment dispersal from areas north of the basin during the Triassic. However, as a result of rifting, during the Early Jurassic, the northern source region became disconnected from the Sverdrup Basin, and opened the precursor basin (Amerasia Basin) to the Arctic Ocean. Jurassic rifting of the Amerasia Basin would have had associated rift-flank uplift. Time-temperature models produced from zircon (U-Th)/He thermochronological data elucidate the unknown thermal history between the regional Devonian-Cretaceous unconformity in the southwestern Canadian Arctic suggesting ~4 km of addition deposition on Banks Island and ≤1 km of deposition towards the craton interior.