| 1. |
- Hansman, Reuben J., et al.
(author)
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Late Eocene Uplift of the Al Hajar Mountains, Oman, Supported by Stratigraphy and Low-Temperature Thermochronology
- 2017
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In: Tectonics. - 0278-7407 .- 1944-9194. ; 36:12, s. 3081-3109
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Uplift of the Al Hajar Mountains in Oman has been related to either Late Cretaceous ophiolite obduction or the Neogene Zagros collision. To test these hypotheses, the cooling of the central Al Hajar Mountains is constrained by 10 apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe), 15 fission track (AFT), and four zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) sample ages. These data show differential cooling between the two major structural culminations of the mountains. In the 3km high Jabal Akhdar culmination AHe single-grain ages range between 392 Ma and 101 Ma (2 sigma errors), AFT ages range from 518 Ma to 324 Ma, and ZHe single-grain ages range from 62 +/- 3Ma to 39 +/- 2 Ma. In the 2 km high Saih Hatat culmination AHe ages range from 26 +/- 4 to 12 +/- 4 Ma, AFT ages from 73 +/- 19Ma to 57 +/- 8 Ma, and ZHe single-grain ages from 81 +/- 4 Ma to 58 +/- 3 Ma. Thermal modeling demonstrates that cooling associated with uplift and erosion initiated at 40 Ma, indicating that uplift occurred 30 Myr after ophiolite obduction and at least 10 Myr before the Zagros collision. Therefore, this uplift cannot be related to either event. We propose that crustal thickening supporting the topography of the Al Hajar Mountains was caused by a slowdown of Makran subduction and that north Oman took up the residual fraction of N-S convergence between Arabia and Eurasia.
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| 2. |
- Ring, Uwe, et al.
(author)
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Fault-gouge dating in the Southern Alps, New Zealand
- 2017
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In: Tectonophysics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0040-1951 .- 1879-3266. ; 717, s. 321-338
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We report two Ar-40/Ar-39 illite ages from fault gouge directly above the current trace of the Alpine Fault in New Zealand at Gaunt Creek (1.36 +/- 0.27 Ma) and Harold Creek (1.18 +/- 0.47 Ma), and one Ar-40/Ar-39 illite age from fault gouge from the Two Thumbs Fault on the east side of the Southern Alps. Metamorphic muscovite clasts inherited into the Alpine Fault gouge yielded Ar-40/Ar-39 ages of 2.04 +/- 0.3 Ma at Gaunt Creek and 11.46 +/- 0.47 Ma at Harold Creek. We also report Rb-Sr muscovite-based multimineral ages of Alpine Schist mylonite adjacent to the dated fault gouge at Harold Creek (13.1 +/- 43 Ma) and Gaunt Creek (8.9 +/- 3.2 Ma). Ar-40/Ar-39 muscovite ages from the Gaunt Creek mylonite yielded plateau ages of 1.47 +/- 0.08 Ma and 1.57 +/- 0.15 Ma. Finally, we report zircon fission track (0.79 +/- 0.11 and 0.81 +/- 0.17 Ma) and zircon (U-Th)/He ages (0.35 +/- 0.03 and 0.4 +/- 0.06 Ma) from Harold Creek.& para;& para;We interpret the fault gouge ages to date growth of newly formed illite during gouge formation at temperatures of similar to 300-350 degrees C towards the base of the seismogenic zone. Simple backcalculation using current uplift/exhumation and convergence rates, and dip angles of 45-60 degrees at the Alpine Fault support that interpretation. We infer that the fault gouge ages record faulting and gouge formation as the rocks passed very rapidly through the brittle-ductile transition zone on their way to the surface. Rb-Sr and Ar-40/Ar-39 ages on muscovite from Alpine Schist mylonite date muscovite growth at similar to 11 Ma together with a younger phase of cooling/shearing at similar to 1.5-2 Ma. Our ages from the Alpine Schist indicate extremely rapid cooling exceeding 200 degrees C/Ma. The fault gouge age from the Two Thumbs Fault is significantly too old to have formed as part of the late Neogene/Quaternary Southern Alps evolution.
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