Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:06:46.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palaeomagnetic and geochemical evaluation of a terrane-linking ignimbrite: evidence for the relative position of the Grampian and Midland Valley terranes in late Silurian time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

A. Trench  and
P. D. W. Haughton
A. Trench
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, UK
P. D. W. Haughton
Affiliation:
Department of Geology & Applied Geology, The University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The proposed correlation of Lower Old Red Sandstone dacitic ignimbrites between the Northern Midland Valley and Grampian terranes of central Scotland has been investigated in a combined palaeomagnetic and geochemical study. Statistically indistinguishable late Silurian palaeolatitudes (Grampian terrane 27.0° S±3.5°; Northern Midland Valley terrane 22.9° S± 1.8°), comparable remagnetization histories, a shared ‘normal’ polarity for the primary magnetization and equivalent gyroremanence acquisition, favour correlation across the Highland Boundary Fault. Similar chemistry for biotite phenocrysts further corroborates correlation which was initially made on the basis of a similar field appearance and petrography.

This correlation, together with evidence from provenance studies, suggests that the separation of the Northern Midland Valley and Grampian terranes inferred for the Ordovician period was largely removed by late Silurian times, with scope for relative displacements of the order of only tens of kilometres after Lower Old Red Sandstone deposition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 127 , Issue 3 , May 1990 , pp. 241 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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

Allan, D. A. 1928. The geology of the Highland Border from Tayside to Noranside. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 56, 57–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, M. & Paterson, I. B. 1970. The Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Strathmore Region. Report of the Institute of Geological Sciences No. 70/12.Google Scholar
Bluck, B. J. 1984. Pre-Carboniferous history of the Midland Valley of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 75, 275–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bluck, B. J. 1985. The Scottish paratectonic Caledonides. Scottish Journal of Geology 21, 437–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briden, J. C., Turnell, H. B. & Watts, D. R. 1986. Reappraisal of Scottish Ordovician palaeomagnetism: Reply to Storetvedt and Deutsch. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 87, 1207–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, R. 1913. The geology of south-eastern Kincardineshire. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 48, 923–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cas, R. A. F. & Wright, J. V. 1987. Volcanic Successions Modern and Ancient: A Geological Approach to Processes, Products and Successions. Allen & Unwin. 528 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cisowski, S. M. 1984. Evidence for the Tertiary remagnetisation of Devonian rocks from the Orcadian Basin, northern Scotland, and associated transcurrentfault motion. Geology 12, 369–72.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dankers, P. H. M. & Zijderveld, J. D. A. 1981. Alternating field demagnetisation of rocks, and the problem of gyromagnetic remanence. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 53, 89–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellwood, B. B. 1982. Estimates of flow direction for calcalkaline welded tuffs and paleomagnetic data reliability from anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility measurements: Central San Juan mountains, southwest Colorado. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 59, 303–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, R. A. 1953. Dispersion on a sphere. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 217, 295–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, T. N. 1960. The stratigraphical evolution of the Midland Valley. Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow 24, 33–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hahn, G. A., Rose, W. I. Jr, & Meyers, T. 1979. Geochemical correlation of genetically related rhyoliticash-flow and air-fall ashes, central and western Guatemala and the equatorial Pacific. In Ash-flow Tuffs(ed. Chapin, C. E. and Elston, W. E.), pp. 101–12.Geological Society of America Special Paper no. 180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harland, W. B., Cox, A. V., Llewellyn, P. G., Pickton, C. A. G., Smith, A. G. & Walters, R. 1982. A GeologicTime Scale. Cambridge University Press. 131 pp.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 75, 151–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haughton, P. D. W. & Farrow, C. M. 1989. Compositional variation in Lower Old Red Sandstone detritalgarnets from the Midland Valley of Scotland and the Anglo-Welsh Basin. Geological Magazine 126, 373–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haughton, P. D. W., Rogers, G. & Halliday, A. N. 1990. Provenance of Lower Old Red Sandstone Con-glomerates, Kincardineshire: Evidence for the timing of Caledonian terrane accretion in central Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society of London (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hildreth, W. 1979. The Bishops Tuff: evidence for the origin of compositional zonation in silicic magma chambers. In Ash-flow Tuffs(ed. Chapin, C. E. and Elston, W. E.), pp. 43–75. Geological Societyof America Special Paper no. 180.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
Johnson, M. R. W. & Harris, A. L. 1967. Dalradian –? Arenig relations in parts of the Highland Border Scotland, and their significance in thechronology of the Caledonian Orogeny. Scottish Journal of Geology 3, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jowett, E. C., Pearce, G. W. & Rydzewski, A. 1987.A mid-Triassic palaeomagnetic age for the Kupferscheifer mineralization in Poland, based on a revised apparent polar wander path for Europe and Russia. Journal ofGeophysical Research 92, 581–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kent, J. T., Briden, J. C. & Mardia, K. V. 1983. Linear and planar structure in ordered multivariate data as applied to progressive demagnetization of palaeomagnetic remanence. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 75, 593–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langereis, C. G. 1979. An attempt to correlate two adjacent Tortonian marine clay sections in western Crete using magnetostratigraphic methods. Utrecht Micropala-eontological Bulletin 21, 193–214.Google Scholar
MacDonald, W. D. 1980. Net tectonic rotation, apparent tectonic rotation and the structural tilt correction inpalaeomagnetic studies. Journal ofGeophysical Research 85, 3659–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McElhinny, M. W. 1964. Statistical significance of the fold test in palaeomagnetism. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 8, 338–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molyneux, L. 1971. A complete results magnetometer for measuring the remanent magnetisation of rocks. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 24, 429–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, I. B. & Harris, A. L. 1969. Lower Old Red Sandstone Ignimbrites from Dunkeld, Perthshire. Report of the Institute of Geological Sciences, no. 69/7.Google Scholar
Read, W. A. 1988. Controls on Silesian sedimentation in the Midland Valley of Scotland. In Sedimentation in a Synorogenic Basin Complex: the UpperCarboniferous of Northwest Europe. (ed. Besly, B. M. and Kelling, G.), pp. 222–41. Blackie.Google 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. Journal of the Geological Society of London 146, 789–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, J. G. 1986. Palaeomagnetic directional dispersion produced by plastic deformation in a thick Miocene welded tuff, southern Nevada: Implications for welding temperatures. Journal of Geophysical Research 91, 12817–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sallomy, J. T. & Piper, J. D. A. 1973. Palaeomagneticstudies in the British Caledonides. IV. Lower Devonian Lavas of the Strathmore region, Scotland. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 34, 47–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smethurst, M. A. & Briden, J. C. 1988. Palaeomagnetism of Silurian sediments in W. Ireland: evidence for block rotation in the Caledonides. Geophysical Journal 95, 327–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R. L. 1979. Ash-flow magmatism. In Ash-flow Tuffs. (eds Chapin, C. E. and Elston, W. E.), pp. 5–27. Geological Society of America Special Paper no. 180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soper, N. J., Webb, B. C. & Woodcock, N. H. 1987.Late Caledonian (Acadian) transpression in north-west England: timing, geometry and geotectonic significance. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 46, 175–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, A. 1980 a. Gyromagnetism and the remanence acquired by a rotating rock in an alternating field. Nature 284, 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, A. 1980 b. A gyroremanent magnetisation in anisotropic magnetic material. Nature 284, 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, A. 1981. Gyroremanent magnetization in a weakly anisotropic rock sample. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 25, 163–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storetvedt, K. M. 1987. Major late Caledonian and Hercynian shearmovements on the Great Glen Fault. Tectonophysics 142, 253–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storetvedt, K. M. & Torsvik, T. H. 1983. Palaeomagneticre-examination of the basal Caithness Old Red Sandstone; aspects of local and regional tectonics. Tectonophysics 98, 151–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storetvedt, K. M. & Torsvik, T. H. 1985. Palaeomagnetic results from the Esha Ness Ignimbrites, Shetland. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 31, 169–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarling, D. H. 1985. Palaeomagnetic studies of the Orcadian Basin. Scottish Journal of Creology 21, 261–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thirlwall, M. F. 1988. Geochronology of Late Caledonian magmatismin northern Britain. Journal of the Geological Society of London 145, 951–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tindle, A. G., McGarvie, D. W. & Webb, P. C. 1988.The role of hybridization and crystal fractionation in the evolution of the Cairnsmore of Carsphain Intrusion, Southern Uplands of Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society of London 145, 11–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torsvik, T. H. 1985. Magnetic properties of the Lower Old Red Sandstone lavas in the Middle Valley, Scotland; palaeomagnetic and tectonic considerations. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 39, 194–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torsvik, T. H., Lyse, O., Atteras, G. & Bluck, B. J. 1989. Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic results from Scotland and their bearing on the British apparent polar wander path. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 55, 93–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torsvik, T. H., Smethurst, M. A., Briden, J. C. & Sturt, B. A. 1990. A review of Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data from Europe and their palaeogeographical implications. In Palaeozoic Palaeogeography and Bio-geography(ed. McKerrow, W. S. and Scotese, C. R.), pp. 000–000. Geological Society of London Memoir, no. 12 (in press).Google Scholar
Trench, A., Bluck, B. J. & Watts, D. R. 1988. Palaeomagnetic studies within the Ballantrae Ophiolite, S.W. Scotland: Magneto tectonic and regional tectonic implications. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 90, 431–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trench, A., Dentith, M. C., Bluck, B. J., Watts, D. R. & Floyd, J. D. 1989. Palaeomagnetic constraints on the geological terrane models of the Scottish Caledonides. Journal of the Geological Society ofLondon 146, 405–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van der Voo, R. & Johnson, R. J. E. 1985. Palaeomagnetism of the Dunn Point Formation (NovaScotia): High palaeolatitudes for the Avalon terranein the late Ordovician. Geophysical Research Letters 12, 337 –40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar