A reappraisal of the Rb-Sr systematics of early Archaean gneisses from Hebron,Labrador

A re-investigation of the Rb-Sr isotope systematics of early Archaean granodiorite gneisses from Hebron, northern Labrador, confirms the existence of early Archaean crust in that area, but has failed to corroborate both the high degree of coherence and the high initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr reported by Barton 1]. Instead, marked geological scatter is observed in the data for both slabbed gneisses and large bulk samples, a scatter unequivocally due to the development of secondary whole-rock isochrons at ～ 1800 Ma.Regression analysis of the new data gives very large uncertainties in the age and initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr because of this secondary disturbance, viz. 3645_?470⁺⁸⁷⁵ Ma and 0.702_+0.005^?0.009. We interpret the previous indications of high initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr at 3600 Ma as due to chance.The Hebron data cannot be distinguished from similar populations of geologically-disturbed Rb-Sr results from the Uivak I gneisses to the north 5] and the Amîtsoq grey gneisses 6]. This supports a field-based contention that the so-called “Hebron gneisses” are both lithologic and stratigraphic equivalents of the Uivak I gneisses.