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Zircon geochronology of intrusive rocks from Cap de Creus, Eastern Pyrenees

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

ELENA DRUGUET*
Affiliation:
Departament de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
ANTONIO CASTRO
Affiliation:
UA Petrología Experimental, CSIC-Universidad de Huelva, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Campus de El Carmen, 21071 Huelva, Spain
MARTIM CHICHORRO
Affiliation:
GEOBIOTEC, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Quinta da Torre, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
M. FRANCISCO PEREIRA
Affiliation:
Departamento Geociências, ECT, Universidade de Évora, IDL Apt.94, 7001-554 Évora, Portugal
CARLOS FERNÁNDEZ
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geodinámica y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Huelva, Campus de El Carmen, 21071 Huelva, Spain
*
Author for correspondence: elena.druguet@uab.cat

Abstract

New petrological and U–Pb zircon geochronological information has been obtained from intrusive plutonic rocks and migmatites from the Cap de Creus massif (Eastern Pyrenees) in order to constrain the timing of the thermal and tectonic evolution of this northeasternmost segment of Iberia during late Palaeozoic time. Zircons from a deformed syntectonic quartz diorite from the northern Cap de Creus Tudela migmatitic complex yield a mean age of 298.8±3.8 Ma. A syntectonic granodiorite from the Roses pluton in the southern area of lowest metamorphic grade of the massif has been dated at 290.8±2.9 Ma. All the analysed zircons from two samples of migmatitic rocks yield inherited ages from the Precambrian metasedimentary protolith (with two main age clusters at c. 730–542 Ma and c. 2.9–2.2 Ga). However, field structural relationships indicate that migmatization occurred synchronously with the emplacement of the quartz dioritic magmas at c. 299 Ma. Thus, the results of this study suggest that subduction-related calc-alkaline magmatic activity in the Cap de Creus was coeval and coupled with D2 dextral transpression involving NNW–SSE crustal shortening during Late Carboniferous – Early Permian time (c. 299–291 Ma). Since these age determinations are within the range of those obtained for undeformed (or slightly deformed) calc-alkaline igneous rocks from NE Iberia, it follows that the Cap de Creus massif would represent a zone of intense localization of D2 transpression and subsequent D3 ductile wrenching that extended into the Lower Permian during a transitional stage between the Variscan and Cimmerian cycles.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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