Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:12:35.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The age and tectonic significance of the Bute amphibolite, Highland Border Complex, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

T. J. Dempster
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, U.K. Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0QU, U.K.
B. J. Bluck
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0QU, U.K.

Abstract

Sm–Nd and K–Ar isotopic determinations on an amphibolite from the Highland Border Complex yield Cambrian ages. Collisional events which might have generated the amphibolite appear incompatible with the passive margin character of Laurentia at that time. A possible explanation is that the part of the Highland Border Complex containing the amphibolite and associated rock units was generated outside Laurentia.

Type
Rapid Communication
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bluck, B. J. 1985. The Scottish paratectonic Caledonides. Scottish Journal of Geology 21, 437–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bluck, B. J., Halliday, A. N., Aftalion, M. & Macintyre, R. M. 1980. Age and origin of Ballantrae ophiolite, its significance to Caledonian ororgeny and Ordovician time-scale. Geology 8, 492–5.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cliff, R. A. 1985. Isotopic dating in metamorphic belts. Journal of the Geological Society, London 142, 97110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, A. S., O'Nions, R. K., Siegenthaler, R. & Griffin, W. L. 1988. Chronology of the pressure-temperature history recorded by a granulite terrain. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 98, 303–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curry, G. B., Ingham, J. K., Bluck, B. J. & Williams, A. 1982. The significance of a reliable Ordovician age for some Highland Border rocks in Central Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society, London 139, 451–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curry, G. B., Bluck, B. J., Burton, C. J., Ingham, J. K., Siveter, D. J. & Williams, A. 1984. Age, evolution and tectonic history of the Highland Border Complex, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 75, 113–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dallmeyer, R. D. & Villeneuve, M. 1987. 40Ar/39Ar mineral age record of polyphase tectonothermal evolution in the southern Mauritanide orogen, southeastern Senegal. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 98, 602–11.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dempster, T. J. 1985. Uplift patterns and orogenic evolution in the Scottish Dalradian. Journal of the Geological Society, London 142, 111–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePaolo, D. J. 1981. Neodymium isotopes in the Colorado Front Range and crust-mantle evolution in the Proterozoic. Nature 291, 193–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, A. N., Fallick, A. E., Dickin, A. P., Mackenzie, A. B., Stephens, W. E. & Hildreth, W. 1983. The isotopic and chemical evolution of Mount St. Helens. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 63, 241–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, P. J., Bluck, B. J. & Halliday, A. N. 1984. Sm–Nd ages from the Ballantrae complex, SW Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 75, 183–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harland, W. B., Cox, A. V., Llewellyn, P. G., Pickton, C. A. G., Smith, A. G. & Walters, R. 1982. A Geologic Time Scale. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harte, B., Booth, J. E., Dempster, T. J., Fettes, D. J., Mendum, J. R. & Watts, D. 1984. Aspects of the post-depositional evolution of Dalradian and Highland Border Complex rocks in the Southern Highlands of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 75, 151–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, W. G. & Robertson, A. H. F. 1982. The Highland Border rocks and their relation to marginal basin development in the Scottish Caledonides. Journal of the Geological Society, London 139, 433–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutton, D. H. W. 1987. Strike-slip terranes and a model for the evolution of the British and Irish Caledonides. Geological Magazine 124, 405–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingham, J. K., Curry, G. B. & Williams, A. 1985. Early Ordovician Dounans Limestone fauna, Highland Border Complex, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 76, 481513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. R. W. & Harris, A. L. 1967. Dalradian–? Arenig relations in parts of the Highland Border, Scotland, and their significance in the chronology of the Caledonian orogeny. Scottish Journal of Geology 3, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, S. & Bluck, B. J. 1989. Detrital mineral ages from the Southern Uplands using Ar-Ar laser probe. Journal of the Geological Society, London 146, 401–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pringle, J. 1939. The discovery of Cambrian trilobites in the Highland border rocks near Callander, Perthshire. Advancement of Science, London, p. 252.Google Scholar
Robertson, A. H. F. & Henderson, W. G. 1984. Geochemical evidence for the origins of the igneous and sedimentary rocks of the Highland Border, Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Earth Sciences 75, 135–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, G., Dempster, T. J., Bluck, B. J. & Tanner, P. W. G. 1989. A high precision U-Pb age for the Ben Vuirich granite: implications for the evolution of the Scottish Dalradian supergroup. Journal of the Geological Society, London 146, 789–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spray, J. G. 1988. Thrust-related metamorphism beneath the Shetland Islands oceanic fragment, northeast Scotland. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 25, 1760–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styles, M. T., Stone, P. & Floyd, J. D. 1989. Arc detritus in the Southern Uplands: mineralogical characterisation of a ‘missing’ terrane. Journal of the Geological Society, London 146, 397400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanner, P. W. G., Dempster, T. J. & Dickin, A. P. 1989. Time of docking of the Connemara terrane with the Delaney Dome Formation, western Ireland. Journal of the Geological Society, London 146, 389–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
York, D. 1969. Least squares fitting of a straight line with correlated errors. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 5, 320–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar