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Sedimentary basins provide a deep time archive of tectonic and Earth-surface processes that can be leveraged by detrital mineral U-Pb dating and geochemistry to track paleogeography, magmatism, and crustal evolution. Zircon preserves the long-term (billions of years) record of supercontinent cycles; however, it is biased toward preserving felsic crustal records. Detrital rutile complements the detrital zircon record by providing constraints on the time and temperature of rifting and mafic magmatism, metamorphism, exhumation of the middle and lower crust, subduction, and amagmatic orogenesis. We use detrital zircon U-Pb and detrital rutile U-Pb geochronology and trace element analysis of Permian to Eocene siliciclastic rocks in the southern Pyrenees to capture supercontinent cycles of ocean basins opening and closing. Detrital rutile age spectra show peaks at ca. 100 Ma associated with rifting and hyperextension in the Pyrenean realm, 200 Ma associated with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, and 330 Ma, 375 Ma, and 400 Ma associated with subduction and Rheic Ocean crust formation. Zr-in-rutile thermometry and rutile Cr-Nb systematics provide further insight into metamorphic facies (peak metamorphic temperatures) and source rock lithology (mafic versus felsic affinity). Detrital zircon age spectra have peaks at ca. 300 Ma, 450 Ma, and 600 Ma associated with major orogenic events and felsic magmatism, and Th/U ratios provide information on relative zircon formation temperatures. Comparison of these independent records shows that detrital rutile reflects rifting, magma-poor orogenesis, and oceanic lithospheric processes, while detrital zircon detects continental lithospheric processes. Integrated detrital zircon and rutile data sets archive past geological events across multiple Wilson cycles.

The tectonic affinity and origins of the Jurassic, siliciclastic San Cayetano and Constancia formations exposed in western and central Cuba in the Caribbean region remain debated. The scarcity of modern geochronologic studies on these Cuban units hampers both sedimentary provenance and palinspastic reconstructions, resulting in Caribbean models that tend to oversimplify the formation of Cuba and correlate the Jurassic strata to various regions such as North America, South America, the Yucatán margin, or the conceptual Caribeana domain. Using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), we conducted a detailed detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb provenance study of these Cuban siliciclastic strata that provides critical insights into understanding the formation of Cuba during the Early Jurassic rifting stages of Pangea. Results from 19 San Cayetano Formation samples show a dominant Oaxaquia (ca. 1 Ga) and Chiapas batholith (ca. 250 Ma) signature, while six Constancia samples display variable ca. 1 Ga and ca. 250 Ma grains. The Lower Cretaceous Polier Formation and the Paleocene Moncada Formation also display the same ca. 1 Ga and ca. 250 Ma signatures. After comparing these Cuban data with data from other regional DZ studies, we propose that that the San Cayetano and Constancia formations are correlative to the Todos Santos Formation located in the southwestern Yucatán region of Mexico. These Cuban units were predominantly deposited adjacent to the Chiapas batholith during the Early Jurassic in northwest-southeast-trending basins created by Pangean rifting. They were eventually sheared during eastward migration of the Caribbean plate and transported northward until they collided with the North American continent in the Paleogene. This DZ study provides new constraints on the tectonic provenance of western and central Cuba and improves plate tectonic reconstructions of the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report ten new zircon (U-Th)/He ages from psammitic greyschists collected in a southwest-northeast profile in the Otago Schist across the Dunstan and Cairnmuir Mountains, New Zealand. Six of the samples have accompanying new detrital zircon U-Pb ages. In this part of the Otago Schist, a broad antiformal core of garnet-biotite-albite zone schist defines a range-scale footwall block to the gently northeast-dipping Thomsons Gorge Fault and the gently southwest-dipping Cromwell Gorge faults. Hanging wall blocks above the faults comprise lower-grade chlorite zone schists. Nine schist samples from footwall and hanging wall blocks close to the low-angle faults exhibit a weighted mean (U-Th)/He age of 82 ± 3 Ma. We interpret that both low-angle fault systems were active prior to c. 82 Ma and confirm that they were extensional. We interpret the antiformal schist core as the late Early Cretaceous (c. < 122–109 Ma) ductile extensional lower plate of a metamorphic core complex. The lower plate (footwall) core was juxtaposed against the upper plate (hanging wall) schists by the low-angle normal decollement faults. Detrital zircon U-Pb ages indicate Carboniferous, Permo-Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous maximum depositional ages of schist protoliths which demand more complex terrane and metamorphic interpretations for the Otago Schist than previously recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]