Provenance and tectonic implications of Palaeoproterozoic (c. 1740 Ma) quartz porphyry clasts in the basal Old Red Sandstone (Lilljeborgfjellet Conglomerate Formation) of northwestern Svalbard's Caledonides

Abstract

The Lilljeborgfjellet Conglomerate Formation composes the lower part of the alluvial Siktefjellet Group of northwestern Spitsbergen's Old Red Sandstone succession. Siktefjellet strata are of late Silurian or early Devonian age, but lack precise age-diagnostic fossils. They are unconformably overlain by conglomerates and sandstones of the Red Bay Group, which contain a well established fish fauna of Lochkovian age. The Lilljeborgfjellet Conglomerate rests with a major unconformity on high-grade (with eclogites) schists and gneisses, with associated corona gabbros and granitic gneisses. Previous isotope-age studies have shown that these igneous rocks yield U/Pb ages of c. 950 Ma, and that the eclogite facies metamorphism may be of Caledonian or late Neoproterozoic age. The high P/high T rocks are intercalated with and overlain by schists affected only by Caledonian amphibolite facies metamorphism, recorded by ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar and Rb/Sr cooling ages of 400–430 Ma.In the Lochkovian Red Bay Group of the Raudfjorden Graben, two horizons of tuffites occur, interbedded with sandstones. New studies of eight zircons from these volcanic rocks have provided single-zircon lead-evaporation ages of c. 950 and c. 1350 Ma; one yielded 440 Ma. All these zircons are probably derived from the underlying basement rocks, the ages being significantly older than the Devonian host strata (c. 410 Ma).The clasts in the Lilljeborgfjellet Conglomerate are generally angular to subrounded and derived locally from the underlying high-grade metamorphic complex. A subordinate (usually less than 1%, but up to about 10%) component of the clasts is a quartz porphyry that is not known in the exposed bedrock anywhere in northwestern Spitsbergen. The quartz porphyries are better rounded than the other clasts; however, the maximum diameter reaches 1.5 metres, indicating that transport distances are unlikely to have exceeded a few kilometres. Three quartz porphyry boulders have been dated by the single-zircon lead-evaporation method and shown to be of Palaeoproterozoic age, yielding ages of 1735±4, 1736±5 and 1739±5 Ma that have not previously been detected in the northwestern part of Svalbard's Caledonides.The quartz porphyry clasts show no evidence of the widespread high-grade tectonothermal activity of Mesoproterozoic and early Palaeozoic age that influenced northwestern Spitsbergen. It is therefore concluded that the most probable source of these clasts lies to the east in the unexposed basement beneath the Old Red Sandstones of the Andrèeland–Dicksonland Graben. The Lilljeborgfjellet quartz porphyry clasts are closely similar in age to the granitic rocks of Ny Friesland. Whereas the latter were subject to Caledonian high amphibolite facies metamorphism, the quartz porphyry clasts have only been affected by a low greenschist facies overprint. Nevertheless, the similarity in age suggests an affinity to Ny Friesland and it is proposed here that the Breibogen–Bockfjorden Fault defines the most important boundary between Svalbard's Caledonian terranes.