Anorthosite massifs,rapakivi granites,and late proterozoic rifting of north America

Anorthosite—adamellite complexes are the chief manifestations of Elsonian magmatic activity of Paleohelikian age (about ?1500 to ?1400 Ma) in Labrador, Canada. Magmatism of similar age and anorogenic character, though with fewer occurrences of massif anorthosite, is present in a belt across the mid-continent and southwestern United States. Anorthosite—quartz mangerite complexes in the Grenville Province lie along the trend of this belt and, although few ages older than the profound Grenvillian regional metamorphism about ?1100 Ma have been determined on them, circumstantial evidence suggests that these also are dominantly of Paleohelikian age.The Labrador complexes are intruded into high-grade metamorphic terrane, older by at least 200 to 300 Ma than the Elsonian magmatism. Typical association of anorthosite massifs with high-grade metamorphic terranes, in Labrador and elsewhere, is probably due to their intrusion into older, stabilized, cratonic crust. The anorthosite—adamellite (and anorthosite—quartz mangerite) complexes are products of bimodal magmatism, and an anorogenic cratonic setting is considered to be of fundamental importance to development of the suites. Olivine tholeiite magmas fractionate to produce high-A1 tholeiitic magmas at or near the base of the cratonic crust, and these magmas are the parents from which anorthosite massifs develop by plagioclase fractionation at higher levels within the crust. Adamellite (quartz mangerite) magmas develop mainly by partial fusion of deep crustal rocks, caused by heat of crystallization from the fractionating olivine tholeiite magmas in the staging region, at or near the base of the crust, and are intruded upward into the crustal complexes; rapakivi textures and chemistries are characteristic products of these magmas. Ferrodiorites, widely associated with anorthosite massifs, probably form as late-stage fractionation products of basic magmas in the subcrustal staging region and are intruded into the massifs in their final stages of development (before intrusion of adamellite or quartz mangerite magmas).The Neohelikian record, dominated by terrestrial sedimentation, basaltic extrusive and intrusive activity, and alkalic magmatism, began soon after ?1400 Ma in the mid-continent United States, central Labrador and southern Greenland. The lithological assemblages have been interpreted by several authors as similar to those of intracontinental rift zones. The following sequence of events: intrusion of Paleohelikian anorthosite—adamellite complexes (granitic intrusion and/or rhyolitic extrusion only, in some places), strong uplift and erosion, crustal attenuation causing basin formation, Neohelikian terrestrial sedimentation, rifting or incipient rifting, renewed basaltic magmatism, and alkalic magmatism, is believed to record a continuing evolving process of mantle—crust interactions over a broad belt across North America.