Palaeozoic palaeogeography of Mexico: constraints from detrital zircon age data
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Detrital zircon age populations from Palaeozoic sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks in Mexico support palinspastic linkages to the northwestern margin of Gondwana (Amazonia) during the late Proterozoic-Palaeozoic. Age data from: (1) the latest Cambrian-Pennsylvanian cover of the c. 1 Ga Oaxacan Complex of southern Mexico; (2) the ?Cambro-Ordovician to Triassic Acatln Complex of southern Mexico's Mixteca terrane; and (3) the ?Silurian Granjeno Schist of northeastern Mexico's Sierra Madre terrane, collectively suggest Precambrian provenances in: (1) the c. 500-650 Ma Brasiliano orogens and c. 600-950 Ma Goias magmatic arc of South America, the Pan-African Maya terrane of the Yucatan Peninsula, and/or the c. 550-600 Ma basement that potentially underlies parts of the Acatln Complex; (2) the Oaxaquia terrane or other c. 1 Ga basement complexes of the northern Andes; and (3) c. 1.4-3.0 Ga cratonic provinces that most closely match those of Amazonia. Exhumation within the Acatln Complex of c. 440-480 Ma granitoids prior to the Late Devonian-early Mississippian, and c. 290 Ma granitoids in the early Permian, likely provided additional sources in the Palaeozoic. The detrital age data support the broad correlation of Palaeozoic strata in the Mixteca and Sierra Madre terranes, and suggest that, rather than representing vestiges of Iapetus or earlier oceanic tracts as has previously been proposed, both were deposited along the southern, Gondwanan (Oaxaquia) margin of the Rheic Ocean and were accreted to Laurentia during the assembly of Pangaea in the late Palaeozoic. The Geological Society of London 2009.
