Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland (Jun 2010)
SIMS zircon ages and Nd isotope systematics of the 2.2 Ga mafic intrusions in northern and eastern Finland
Abstract
Using the SIMS, ID-TIMS and Sm-Nd isotopic methods and the electron microprobe, we have studied several differentiated mafic intrusions of the c. 2.2 Ga gabbro-wehrlite association (GWA) from four Paleoproterozoic schist belts and the Archean Kuhmo Greenstone Belt. Back-scattered electron images and electron microprobe analyses revealed that zircon crystals vary from well-preserved to turbid and highly altered with individual grains often displaying irregular, hydrated, CaO-bearing domains. In the most pristine domains, suitable for establishing the crystallization ages, SIMS 207Pb/206Pb ages fall in the range of 2210–2220 Ma, which is consistent with the most concordant ID-TIMS U-Pb ages. One of the studied intrusions that had previously yielded a conventional U-Pb date of less than 2.0 Ga, could be shown by spot analysis to belong to the 2.2 Ga family. In contrast to the well-preserved zircon domains, altered domains exhibit a variable and often strong U-Pb discordance up to 70 % and have distinctly lower 207Pb/206Pb ages. Some zircon grains record isotopic resetting at the time of the Svecofennian orogeny (ca. 1.8–1.9 Ga), while the most discordant ones project in the concordia diagram to late Paleozoic lower intercept ages indicating a relative recent Pb loss. The mineral chemistry of zircon suggests that the leakage of radiogenic Pb can be ascribed to an open-system behavior related to hydrothermal alteration via action of CaCl2-bearing fluids. Common albitization of plagioclase in the GWA intrusions has caused this mineral to behave as an open system with regard to the Sm-Nd isotopic systematics. Despite this uncertainty, our Nd isotopic data indicate that the magma that produced the GWA intrusions in various parts of northern and eastern Finland was isotopically homogeneous and had an initial εNd(2220 Ma) value of c. +0.6 precluding significant upper crustal contamination upon emplacement and subsequent fractional crystallization.
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