Tectonomagmatic setting and provenance of the Santa Marta Schists, northern Colombia: Insights on the growth and approach of Cretaceous Caribbean oceanic terranes to the South American continent

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Abstract

Metamorphosed volcano-sedimentary rocks accreted to the northern South American continental margin are major vestiges of the Caribbean oceanic plate evolution and its interactions with the continent. Selected whole rock geochemistry, Nd–Sr isotopes and detrital zircon geochronology were obtained in metabasic and metasedimentary rocks from the Santa Marta and San Lorenzo Schists in northernmost Colombia. Trace element patterns are characterized by primitive island arc and MORB signatures. Similarly initial 87Sr/86Sr-εNd isotopic relations correlate with oceanic arcs and MORB reservoirs, suggesting that the protoliths were formed within a back-arc setting or at the transition between the inta-oceanic arc and the Caribbean oceanic crust. Trace element trends from associated metasedimentary rocks show that the provenance was controlled by a volcanic arc and a sialic continental domain, whereas detrital U/Pb zircons from the Santa Marta Schists and adjacent southeastern metamorphic units show Late Cretaceous and older Mesozoic, Late Paleozoic and Mesoproterozoic sources. Comparison with continental inland basins suggests that this arc-basin is allocthonous to its current position, and was still active by ca. 82 Ma. The geological features are comparable to other arc remnants found in northeastern Colombia and the Netherland Antilles. The geochemical and U/Pb detrital signatures from the metasedimentary rocks suggest that this tectonic domain was already in proximity to the continental margin, in a configuration similar to the modern Antilles or the Kermadec arc in the Pacific. The older continental detritus were derived from the ongoing Andean uplift feeding the intra-oceanic tectonic environment. Cross-cutting relations with granitoids and metamorphic ages suggest that metamorphism was completed by ca. 65 Ma.

Introduction

The accretion of oceanic and continental terranes is a major factor of growth and modification of convergent margins (Howell, 1995, Sengör and Natal’in, 1996). The life cycle of these terranes includes several phases of magmatic growth, accretion of other terranes and translation before reaching a continental margin (Howell, 1995, Shervais, 2001). To reconstruct each of these phases is of major importance in order to understand the tectonics and paleogeography of oceanic domains that are commonly destined to lose their unity during subduction. The Cretaceous to Paleogene tectonic evolution of the northern margin of South America is influenced by its interaction with the Caribbean oceanic plate, as part of an ongoing Wilson cycle that started with the break-up of the Pangea Supercontinent in the Late Jurassic (Pindell, 1993, Pindell and Kennan, 2001). Several ophiolite and mafic volcanic sequences recognized along the Northern Andes and the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela (Fig. 1) have shown a complex series of oceanic-continent interactions which still are not fully understood (Kerr et al., 1997, Kerr et al., 2002, Giunta et al., 2002, Giunta, 2003, Pindell et al., 2005, Sisson et al., 2005, Weber et al., in press).

In fact, due to the disruption and dispersion of these complexes by the eastern displacement of the Caribbean plate and the remobilization by younger events, accurate tectonic models and paleogeographic reconstruction must consider integrated information from each Circum-Caribbean region (Iturralde-Vinent et al., 2006).

In this contribution we integrate geological considerations, whole rock geochemistry, Nd and Sr isotopes, and U/Pb detrital zircon geochronology from the metamorphosed volcano-sedimentary Santa Marta Schist belt in northern Colombia. These results are used to reconstruct the tectonomagmatic evolution of the protoliths, define their provenance and placed them into the current models that include major stages of translation and accretion of the Caribbean oceanic fragments to the South American margin during the Late Cretaceous.

Section snippets

Geological setting

The transition of the northern Colombian Andes to the Caribbean region is characterized by several isolated massifs surrounded by Cenozoic basins (Fig. 2). This configuration is related to Late Meso-Cenozoic east–northeast migration of the Caribbean plate and the escape tectonics of the northern Andean block related to the subduction of the Pacific plate (Muessig, 1984, Kellogg, 1984, Macellari, 1995, Colletta et al., 1997, Taboada et al., 2000, Montes et al., 2005). The Santa Marta Massif

Geology of the Santa Marta belt

The Santa Marta Province as defined by Tschanz et al., 1969, Tschanz et al., 1974 includes two major metamorphic belts (Fig. 2) separated by an extensive Paleogene granitoid belt (Tschanz et al., 1974). The southeastern belt includes a series of amphibolites, two-mica schists and orthogneisses metamorphosed in the upper-greenschist to amphibolite facies. These units have been named the San Lorenzo, Gaira and Undifferentiated Schists (Tschanz et al., 1969). Recent geochronological data on an

Geochemistry

Bulk whole rock chemical analysis of 24 samples was determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) at Acme Analytical Laboratories Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada. A 0.2 g aliquot is weighed into a graphite crucible and mixed with 1.5 g of LiBO2 flux. The crucibles are placed in an oven and heated to 1050 °C for 15 min. The molten sample is dissolved in 5% HNO3. Calibration standards and reagent blanks are added to the sample sequence. Sample solutions are aspirated into an ICP

Results

Fieldwork was carried out in the vicinity of Santa Marta and El Rodadero, following a NW-SE transect to cover the different metamorphic units of the SMS (Fig. 2, Fig. 3), this work was complemented with some regionally distributed samples.

Acknowledgments

ECOPETROL, INVEMAR and INGEOMINAS are acknowledged for providing support during several phases of this research. Discussions and support from G. Guzman, F. Colmenares and the Geosearch Ltda Sierra Nevada team are highly appreciated. Comments by two anonymous reviewer are highly appreciated Analytical work received support from the Fundación para el Apoyo de la Investigación y la Cultura del Banco de la República de Colombia, project 2289. Funding for the Arizona LaserChron Center is provided by

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