TOMO 2 - Volcanismo y Magmatismo THE ROLE OF CONTINENTAL CRUST DURING MAGMA GENESIS BENEATH HURD PENINSULA (SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS, ANTARCTICA) – CLUES FROM MAGMATIC DYKES S. Kraus (Instituto Antártico Chileno, Punta Arenas,
[email protected]) H. Miller (Dept. of Earth & Environm. Sci., Univ. of Munich, Germany,
[email protected]) INTRODUCTION Hurd Peninsula (62° 40’ S / 60° 22’ W) is located in southern Livingston Island, the second largest of the South Shetland Islands (Fig. 1). It is bordered by South Bay in the NW and False Bay in the SE and comprises about 27 km2. Three main lithological sequences crop out there: the sedimentary, turbiditic Miers Bluff Formation (MBF) in the stratigraphically lowermost position, unconformably overlain by the Moores Peak Breccia and, uppermost, the volcanic rocks of the magmatic arc (Mount Bowles Formation). The investigation area is located in the northwestern part of Hurd Peninsula and the dykes are hosted without exception by the Miers Bluff Formation. Major goals were the identification of tectonic events as reflected by the orientation of the dykes and by joint systems, the determination of the magma sources as well as possible changes, and relationships between tectonic and magmatic events. Ar-Ar age determinations carried out on plagioclase separates indicate that the dykes intruded the different directions (first and second order dextral and sinistral shear systems) correlated with the folding axis (24°, evident in the sedimentary host rocks) from Danian on, most of them during the Lutetian. Six different intrusive events can be distinguished on Hurd Peninsula. Fig. 1: Geography of the northern Antarctic Peninsula Dykes of the same relative age also share the and the South Shetland Islands and their location in Antarctica (inset).