Isla San Pedro Nolasco as a Late Miocene intrusive record at the eastern margin of the Gulf of California:Insights from geological,geochemical and geochronological studies

Isla San Pedro Nolasco(ISPN)is a structural high bounded by inactive dextral oblique-slip faults in the east-central part of the Gulf of California rift zone and is composed of intrusive rocks not exposed on other Gulf of California islands.Here we present the reconnaissance results from geological mapping,as well as first geochemical and geochronological data for the ISPN intrusive complex.The intrusive rocks compose a sheet-like body of intermediate and felsic composition intruded by an intermediate and acidic dike swarm.All intrusive rocks(host and dikes)range in age from ca.9 Ma to 10 Ma(^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar)and show a hydrous ferromagnesian mineral association(amphibole and biotite)with a calc-alkalic and transitional affinity.This hydrated mineralogical association has not been recognized in the coeval rocks along the onshore western margin of the North American plate(coastal Sonora).However,such hydrous mineralogical association is found in the coeval rift transitional volcanic rocks from the Baja California Microplate at Santa Rosalía and Bahía de LosÁngeles–Bahía de LasÁnimas.The ISPN continental block,at least 40 km long,has been pulled apart by transtensional faulting of the late Miocene Gulf of California shear zone before the westward migration of the North America-Pacific plate boundary at ca.3–2 Ma.Eventually,ISPN became isolated as an island during the late Miocene flooding of the Gulf of California seaway.

Seamount chains and hotspot tracks:Superficially similar,deeply different

Nearly 80%of the seafloor extension has not been covered by high-resolution bathymetry,impeding direct observation of seamounts.Nevertheless,lists of seamount location and height at a global scale have been produced using different techniques.In this work four of such databases(publicly available)are compared with each other to assess their differences.Results identify large differences among databases that could have exerted strong influences on models of seamount production and associated geodynamic processes.Despite those differences,it is shown that all databases allow the identification of seamount lines both along the present-day Mid Ocean Ridge(MOR)system and on intraplate settings.Notably,those seamount lines do not coincide with the so-called hotspot tracks that commonly were defined by selectively focusing attention on the larger seamounts.Examination of all the databases also shows that distinction based only on seamount size between seamounts produced at Mid-Ocean Ridge(MOR)environments from those associated with mantle-plum fed-hotspot activity has been overestimated.This,combined with the fact that most seamount lines defined by the available databases can be traced back to past locations of MOR indicates that most of the present-day intraplate linear arrays of seamounts,which include some large seamounts,were not produced by the action of underlying mantle anomalies envisaged in the form of mantle plumes.The evidence presented here calls for a reassessment of the form in which volcanic and tectonic activities are conceptually related to each other.

Multi-isotope and geochemical approach to the magma source and tectonic setting of Proterozoic anorthosite massifs and AnorthositeMangerite-Charnockite-Granite(AMCG)suites

The occurrence of massif-type anorthosite intrusions is a widespread Proterozoic phenomenon.They are usually associated with gabbroic,charnockitic,and granitic rocks,comprising the so-called anorthositemangerite-charnockite-granite(AMCG)suite.Although these rocks have been extensively studied worldwide,several aspects concerning their formation remain unsettled.Among them,the magma source and the tectonic setting are the most important.To evaluate these issues,we first compiled geochemical and isotopic data of Proterozoic anorthosite massifs and AMCG suites worldwide and stored it in a database named datAMCG.This plethora of data allows us to make some important interpretations.We argue that the wide-ranging multi-isotopic composition of this group of rocks reflects varying proportions of juvenile mantle-derived melts and crustal components.We interpret that the precursor magmas of most massive anorthosite bodies and associated mafic rocks have a mantle-dominated origin.However,we highlight that a crustal component is indispensable to generate these lithologies.Adding variable amounts of this material during succeeding multi-stage assimilation-fractional crystallization(AFC)processes gives these intrusions their typical mantle-crustal hybrid isotopic traits.In contrast,a crustaldominant origin with a complementary mantle component is interpreted for most MCG rocks.In summary,the isotopic information in datAMCG indicates that both sources are necessary to generate AMCG rocks.Therefore,we suggest that hybridized magmas with different mantle-crust proportions originate these rocks.This interpretation might offer a more nuanced and accurate depiction of this phenomenon in future work instead of choosing a single-sourced model as in the past decades.Finally,tectonomagmatic diagrams suggest that the rocks under study were likely generated in a tectonic environment that transitioned between collision and post-collisional extension,sometimes involving subduction-modified mantle sources.This interpretation is supported by geological and geochronological information from most complexes,thus challenging the Andean-type margins as an ideal tectonic setting.