Tectonic Outlier of Great Valley Sequence in Franciscan Terrain, Diablo Range, California
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Tectonic outlier of Great Valley sequence in Franciscan terrain, Diablo Range, California JANET M. BAUD ER* , ^ , • c r J ,-r • m,,,- J G LIOU I Department of Geology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 9-1 >(b ABSTRACT between the Franciscan Complex and the Great Valley sequence have long been a subject of controversy. Taliaferro (1943) thought A dismembered ophiolite, tectonically overlain by Great Valley that the Franciscan was overlain conformably by Upper Jurassic strata, rests upon Franciscan rocks southeast of Cedar Mountain in beds of the lower Great Valley sequence. Irwin (1957) disproved the northern Diablo Range. The klippe of sedimentary rocks is the this hypothesis by demonstrating that parts of the Franciscan are first reported outlier of the Great Valley sequence in the interior of Cretaceous in age. Irwin (1964) and Bailey and others (1964) noted the range. The dismembered ophiolite is composed of serpentinized that faults generally separate the Franciscan from the Great Valley ultramafic rocks, hornblende gabbro, diorite, and plagiogranite, sequence, and they suggested that the two units are juxtaposed and it is partially altered to greenschist facies assemblages contain- along a regional thrust fault, later named the Coast Range thrust ing chlorite + epidote + albite + actinolite. (Bailey and others, 1970). The Franciscan Complex northeast of the ophiolite is charac- Within the last decade, the concept of plate tectonics has revo- terized by lithologic heterogeneity, and it includes melanges com- lutionized the interpretation of Coast Range geology. According to prised of mixed rock fragments of varied metamorphic grade in- current theories, the Franciscan Complex was assembled in a sub- corporated in a pervasively sheared shale matrix. The coherent duction zone, while the Great Valley strata accumulated farther Franciscan terrain southwest of the ophiolite may belong to a struc- east in a fore-arc basin (see, for example, Hamilton, 1969; Blake tural unit of Late Jurassic age which overlies younger Franciscan and Jones, 1974). The ultramafic and mafic rocks that commonly rocks in other parts of the Diablo Range. All Franciscan samples separate the two sequences represent the oceanic crust and the examined petrographically contain blueschist facies minerals such upper mantle that lie below the base of the westernmost Great Val- as lawsonite, pumpellyite, sodic amphibole, and jadeitic pyroxene. ley sequence. Probably beginning in the Late Jurassic and continu- The Great Valley strata consist of interbedded sandstone and ing into the early Tertiary, the Franciscan Complex was subducted shale. Arkoses of the Great Valley klippe are generally calcareous beneath the oceanic crust and the Great Valley sequence as a result and contain well-preserved detrital potassium feldspar and biotite. of ocean-floor spreading. At depth within the subduction zone, the Locally, the sandstone contains megafossils of probable Valan- Franciscan was successively subjected to the conditions of zeolite, ginian and Cenomanian age, includingLinearia multicostata (Gabb), prehnite-pumpellyite, and blueschist facies metamorphism, and Pterotrigonia oregana (Packard), Turritella hearni Anderson, then somehow returned to the surface (Ernst, 1973). This model Trigonia sp., Panope sp., and small ammonite scraps similar to accounts for the different deformational styles and metamorphic Thurmanniceras (?) sp. Incipient low-grade metamorphism is indi- mineral assemblages in the Franciscan Complex and Great Valley cated by alteration of calcic plagioclase to albite + calcite + white sequence. mica and by partial chloritization of biotite. The lithology and the The present study covers 29 km2 in the Diablo Range (Fig. 1), age, structural, and metamorphic relationships indicate that the which is a northwest-trending antiform in the central Coast Great Valley outlier and its underlying dismembered ophiolite are Ranges. Rocks of the area consist of typically heterogeneous, dis- erosional remnants of the Coast Range thrust which once extended rupted, and metamorphosed Franciscan lithologies, which are over- across the Diablo Range. lain by ophiolitic rocks and the Great Valley sequence. Although much of the northern Diablo Range has been mapped (for example, INTRODUCTION Huey, 1948; Maddock, 1964; Cotton, 1972; Raymond, 1973; Cowan, 1974; Crawford, 1976), no outlier of fossiliferous Great Western California is underlain in large part by the Franciscan Valley sandstone and shale within the interior of the Diablo Range Complex and the Great Valley sequence. Both units consist mainly was recognized prior to the present study. The purposes of this of marine clastic rocks, but they differ in style of deformation and paper are to describe the structural and age relations of lithologic degree of metamorphism. The origin of and tectonic relationship units in the Cedar Mountain area, to discuss the metamorphic min- eral assemblages that distinguish the Franciscan Complex from the ophiolite and the Great Valley sequence, and to relate the discovery ,f Present address: Continental Oil Company, 555 17th Street, Denver, of the Great Valley klippe to the tectonic and metamorphic history Colorado 80202. of the Diablo Range. Geological Society of America Bulletin, Part I, v. 90, p. 561-568, 4 figs., 1 table, June 1979, Doc. no. 90608. 561 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/90/6/561/3434088/i0016-7606-90-6-561.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 562 BAUDER AND LIOU DESCRIPTION OF LITHOLOGIC UNITS blueschist, and metaconglomerate. This area contains melanges with fragments up to 50 m in length enveloped in a pervasively Franciscan Complex sheared shale matrix. However, Franciscan strata on Taylor Ridge are fairly undeformed and may be the westward extension of a As shown in the map and cross sections of Figure 2, almost coherent metagraywacke unit in the adjacent Lone Tree Creek three-fourths of the area is underlain by Franciscan metaclastic quadrangle (M. E. Maddock, 1977, oral commun.). rocks, metachert, greenstone, and some exotic blocks such as Detrital texture in most metasandstones has been disrupted by blueschist, eclogite, and hornblendite. Exposures are generally shearing and recrystallization. In the Cedar Mountain area, the poor, consisting of isolated blocks scattered across grassy hill metagraywackes range from textural zone 1 to low zone 3, with slopes, within stream beds, and along roadcuts. The Franciscan most belonging to zone 2 (Blake and others, 1967). The areal dis- Complex northeast of the dismembered ophiolite consists mainly of tribution of textural zones apparently is unsystematic (Fig. 3), as metagraywacke and argillite with some greenstone, metachert, samples from all three zones may occur within a 600-m radius Figure 1. Index map of Cedar Mountain area and its environs, northern Diablo Range, California. Distribution of jadeitic pyroxene is modified from Ernst (1971, Fig. 7) with contributions from Raymond (1973, Fig. 7) and Cowan (1974, Fig. 2). Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/90/6/561/3434088/i0016-7606-90-6-561.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 EXPLANATION GREAT VALLEY SEQUENCE Sondstone and shale DISMEMBERED OPHIOLITE Xjp^ Gabbro.diorite, and plagiogranite 3000'- UM^ Serpentinized ultramafic rocks 2000- FRANCISCAN COMPLEX ssMetograywacke and shale 1000'- CG Metoconglomerote A Chert Greenstone Hornblendite Blueschist EC Eclogite ••• Lithologic contact La-1' High angle fault (hachures on downthrown side) *—>•— Thrust foult (borbs on upper plate) —r^ Strike and dip of bedding 40-1 Sample locality £ Landslide deposits Figure 2. Geologic map and cross sections of Cedar Mountain area (mapped by J. Bauder, 1975). Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/90/6/561/3434088/i0016-7606-90-6-561.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 564 BAUDER AND LIOU (examples may be seen near Mines Road). This randomness is metachert are part of a large, relatively coherent tabular body un- further evidence that the region includes melanges. derlain by melange. The Franciscan Complex southwest of the ophiolite is fairly The greenstone bordering the ophiolite contains lawsonite ± coherent, containing neither metaconglomerate nor blueschist. A sodic amphibole, blueschist facies minerals characteristic of large greenstone body with minor interbeds of metagraywacke, ar- Franciscan metamorphic rocks. The greenstone-ophiolite contact is gillite, and metachert lies along the southwest border of the ophio- inferred to be a fault because of the disparity in metamorphic phase lite body. This greenstone is apparently overlain by an extensive assemblages across the contact. metachert unit which includes discontinuous outcrops of meta- Blueschists (that is, rocks with sodic amphibole visible in hand graywacke and minor greenstone. The metachert and metagray- specimen) were observed only northeast of the ophiolite body. wacke in this unit commonly have similar bedding attitudes, They are sporadically distributed, typically as 1- to 10-m-wide piles suggesting that they are interbedded rather than tectonically jux- of boulders. An excellent example of a blueschist knocker occurs taposed. Mapping by Crawford (1976) in the adjacent Eylar about 150 m northeast of Mines Road at locality 40-1 (Fig. 2). The Mountain quadrangle suggests that the greenstone and overlying boulder at this location is about 5 m in diameter, has a steely-blue METAMORPHIC MINERAL SYMBOLS