Structural and metamorphic constraints on ca. 70 Ma deformation of the northern Valhalla complex, British Columbia: implications for the tectonic evolution of the southern Omineca belt

Penetrative deformation occurred ca. 70 Ma ago throughout the northern Valhalla complex in Valhalla and Passmore domes and in the Gwillim Creek shear zone, exposed at the deepest structural levels in both domes. Intense strain (ST) in the Gwillim Creek shear zone (domain II) was synchronous with and outlasted deformation (D2) throughout the northern complex (domain I). Upper-amphibolite facies peak mineral assemblages define the predominant foliation. Temperature and pressure results, determined from microdomains with established relationships to reaction textures and microstructures, provide constraints on conditions under which deformation occurred. Deformation was synchronous with and outlasted peak metamorphic conditions at all structural levels. Peak conditions of 825°C and 730 MPa and 850°C and 840 MPa were determined for domains I and II, respectively. This was followed by cooling and retrograde garnet breakdown at conditions of 715°C and 490 MPa and 765°C and 730 MPa in domains I and II, respectively. The faster cooling rate per kilometer of exhumation for domain II relative to domain I is consistent with a model of conductive cooling via thrusting of domain II on to a cold footwall. Metamorphism is interpreted to have resulted from crustal thickening and burial to depths of ca. 25 km based on an inferred clockwise P–T path and the paucity of Late Cretaceous intrusions. Lack of retrograde metamorphism throughout the complex and the high degree of annealing of microstructures indicates that the rocks remained above greenschist-facies conditions until they were exhumed in the Early Tertiary on the Valkyr–Slocan Lake extensional shear zone system. us workers have determined that the peak of metamorphism occurred at 72–67 Ma in a restricted locality in the core of Passmore dome, near Vallican. Our study links this dated metamorphism with the structural evolution and metamorphic history throughout the area, and shows that supracrustal rocks at all structural levels in Valhalla and Passmore domes underwent the same metamorphic and deformation event as those near Vallican. Therefore, we assign a ca. 70 Ma age to the penetrative, high-temperature deformation in northern Valhalla complex and the Gwillim Creek shear zone. This coincides with a major period of shortening in the Rocky Mountains of the Foreland belt. Strain in northern Valhalla complex may represent a local transient shear zone that accommodated crustal thickening in the hinterland during orogen-scale compression, or it may be an exhumed part of the basal detachment of the Rocky Mountains.