Paleogeogra Detrital Zircon Geochronology of Upper Cambrian to Lower Mississippian Siliciclastic Strata of the Ozark Dome and Vicinity
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Scholars' Mine Masters Theses Student Theses and Dissertations Spring 2016 Paleogeogra detrital zircon geochronology of Upper Cambrian to Lower Mississippian siliciclastic strata of the Ozark Dome and vicinity Bing Li Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/masters_theses Part of the Geology Commons Department: Recommended Citation Li, Bing, "Paleogeogra detrital zircon geochronology of Upper Cambrian to Lower Mississippian siliciclastic strata of the Ozark Dome and vicinity" (2016). Masters Theses. 7741. https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/masters_theses/7741 This thesis is brought to you by Scholars' Mine, a service of the Missouri S&T Library and Learning Resources. This work is protected by U. S. Copyright Law. Unauthorized use including reproduction for redistribution requires the permission of the copyright holder. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PALEOGEOGRA DETRITAL ZIRCON GEOCHRONOLOGY OF UPPER CAMBRIAN TO LOWER MISSISSIPPIAN SILICICLASTIC STRATA OF THE OZARK DOME AND VICINITY by BING LI A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the MISSOURI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF SCIENCE IN GEOLOGY 2016 Approved by Dr. Alan D. Chapman, Advisor Dr. John Hogan Dr. David Wronkiewicz © 2016 BING LI All rights reserved iii ABSTRACT Siliciclastic strata exposed in the Ozark Dome provide Late Cambrian to Late Cretaceous snapshots of an evolving paleogeology and regional to far-field tectonic events. U-Pb ages of detrital zircons from the arkosic base of the Upper Cambrian Lamotte Formation reflect first cycle derivation from the adjacent ca. 1.31–1.48 Ga Granite-Rhyolite province, with subsidiary input from ca. 1.6–1.7 Ga Mazatzal basement. Feldspathic arenites near the top of the Lamotte Sandstone also contain significant quantities of detrital zircon grains of these ages, with additional peaks centered at ca. 2.7 and ca. 1.1 Ga, signaling the onset of extra-regional detrital input most likely ultimately derived from the Superior Province and the Midcontinent rift. Ordovician orthoquartzites of the Roubidoux, St. Peter, and Oil Creek formations feature ca. 2.7 and ca. 1.1 Ga peaks more prominently than the Lamotte Sandstone, suggesting an increasing proportion of northerly-derive. Detrital zircon age spectra from Devonian (Bushberg Sandstone), Mississippian (Aux Vases Sandstone) units show a smoothly decreasing proportion of ca. 2.7 Ga grains and an increasing amount of 1.0–1.3 Ga and 500–360 Ma grains with time, marking the arrival of detritus derived from the uplifting Appalachian basement. In aggregate, detrital rocks in the Ozark Dome reflect an evolving depositional environment involving two significant provenance shifts: 1) a Cambrian–Ordovician shift from local basement- to Superior Province- and MidContinent Rift-derived detritus, attributed to changes in base level associated with transgression and regression of the Sauk sea and 2) Devonian shift to detritus sourced from the emerging Appalachian Mountains to the east. Westward transport of clastic sediment originating from the Appalachian highlands continued sporadically until at least Early Mississippian time. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere thanks goes to my advisor, Dr. Alan Chapman, for all I have been taught and for his support throughout the past two and half years. His intelligent and professional manner made this project possible. His encouragement and wisdom led me to a higher level of research. I learned not only the way to do research, but also a critical precise attitude towards scientific investigation. In addition, writing an academic paper for an international student is not easy, thank you Dr. Chapman for your encouragement. My appreciation also goes to my committee members Professor John Hogan and Professor David Wronkiewicz for their academic support. I am also grateful to my friends Amy Norval and Robert Haselwander who helped me with correction of the grammar. They gave me a lot of suggestions. My appreciation also extended to Jing Hua who helped me with the figure corrections and data collection. All the processes cannot be finished without her help. We worked on different aspects and shared the results with each other which taught me that teamwork is really important. I am lucky to get both financial support and spiritual encouragement from my parents, their great love and advice helped me to be who I want to be. Without their help, I cannot make all I have in my life. I would love to show them my love and financial support in the future. Finally, I want to acknowledge the Department of Geosciences at Missouri S&T and the University of Arizona for providing me with software, professors, and equipment that I have been used during this research. Thanks to all my academic professors for teaching me this academic knowledge. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................ vii SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1 2. GEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................3 2.1. SAUK SEQUENCE ......................................................................................... 3 2.1.1. Upper Cambrian Lamotte Sandstone .................................................. 3 2.1.2. Lower Ordovician Roubidoux Sandstone ........................................... 3 2.2. TIPPECANOE SEQUENCE ........................................................................... 4 2.2.1. Middle Ordovician Basal Oil Creek Sandstone .................................. 4 2.2.2. Upper Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone ................................................ 4 2.3. KASKASKIA SEQUENCE............................................................................. 6 2.3.1. Upper Devonian Bushberg Sandstone ................................................. 6 2.3.2. Lower Mississippian Aux Vases Sandstone ........................................ 6 2.4. ABSAROKA SEQUENCE .............................................................................. 7 3. METHODS ................................................................................................................8 3.1. LA-MC-ICPMS ............................................................................................... 8 3.2. MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING MAPPING ............................................ 9 4. RESULTS ................................................................................................................10 4.1. PETROGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 10 vi 4.2. U-PB DATA .................................................................................................. 10 4.2.1. Sauk Sequence ................................................................................... 10 4.2.2. Tippecanoe Sequence ........................................................................ 11 4.2.3. Kaskaskia Sequence .......................................................................... 12 4.2.4. “Pennsylvanian” Paleokarst Fill Sandstone ...................................... 12 4.2.5. Summary of U-Pb Zircon Data ......................................................... 12 5. DISCUSSION ..........................................................................................................14 5.1. ULTIMATE SOURCES OF DETRITAL ZIRCON AGE POPULATIONS 14 5.2. DEPOSITIONAL MODELS ......................................................................... 15 5.3. REGIONAL CORRELATION FRAMEWORK ........................................... 17 6. CONCLUSIONS .....................................................................................................21 APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................22 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............................................................................................................65 VITA ..................................................................................................................................69 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1.1. Paleogeographic map of Middle continent in the United States. ..................... 2 Figure 2.1. Location of study area, the samples symbol beside the blue dot of the location .............................................................................................................. 5 Figure 2.2. Basement map showing the ages and boundaries of geologic provinces in North America.. ................................................................................................ 5 Figure 4.1. QFL provenance diagram showing petrographic data from this study. ......... 11 Figure 4.2. Generalized Paleozoic to Late Cretaceous stratigraphy of Missouri .............. 13 Figure 5.1. Basement map showing the ages and boundaries of geologic provinces in North America. ............................................................................................... 15 Figure 5.2 Cumulative probability plot comparison of Ordovician samples from this study with Huron basin and