Age constraints and tectonic settings of metallogenic and magmatic events in the Verkhoyansk-Kolyma folded area

The paper presents new isotope geochronological data for several mineral deposits, ore occurrences, and related igneous bodies (plutons and dikes) in the Verkhoyansk-Kolyma folded area, eastern Yakutia. Twenty-one ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar mica and four U-Pb zircon dates provide the first age constraints on key metallogenic units in the area. The dating results allow correlation between tectonic, magmatic, and metallogenic events. The sampled mineral deposits within the Adycha-Taryn fault zone in the southeastern Verkhoyansk-Chersky orogen apparently formed at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary during the final phase of the collision between the Siberian (North Asian) craton and the Kolyma-Omolon microcontinent (Kupol’noe deposit and the early metallogenic pulse of the Malotarynskoe deposit, ~ 143-144 Ma) and in the latest Early Cretaceous, in the beginning of the orogen collapse (Tallalakh and Dora-Pil’ deposits and the Malotarynskoe late metallogenic pulse, ~ 126 Ma). According to the suggested new classification of metallogenic units, these deposits belong to the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous Yana-Kolyma metallogenic belt. The Kyuchus deposit (~ 106 Ma), the Deputatsky ore cluster (~ 106-113 Ma), and the Khotoidokh deposit (~ 116 Ma) in the northern Verkhoyansk-Kolyma folded area belong to the North Verkhoyansk metallogenic belt. Their origin was associated with accretional and collisional processes that produced the Novosibirsk-Chukotka orogen in the middle Cretaceous. The Mangazeya ore cluster (~ 100 Ma, Early-Late Cretaceous boundary) in the southwestern end of the North Tirekhtyakh magmatic transverse belt belongs to the West Verkhoyansk metallogenic belt. The Nezhdaninskoe, Zaderzhnoe, Kurum, and Kuta deposits of the South Verkhoyansk area (~ 125-120 and ~ 100-95 Ma) can be joined into a single Verkhoyansk-Okhotsk metallogenic belt. The belt resulted from accretion and collision along the East Asian active continental margin and the related formation of the South Verkhoyansk orogen in the Early Cretaceous.