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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Timing and Evolution of Cretaceous Island Arc Magmatism in Central Cuba: Implications for the History of Arc Systems in the Northwestern Caribbean

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AbstractSHRIMP and conventional zircon dating place temporal constraints on the evolution of the Cretaceous Volcanic Arc system in central Cuba. The arc has a consistent stratigraphy across strike, with the oldest and deepest rocks in the south (in tectonic contact with the ∼5–10-km-wide Mabujina Amphibolite Complex [MAC]) and younger rocks in the north. The MAC is thought to represent the deepest exposed section of the Cretaceous Volcanic Arc and its oceanic basement in Cuba. We undertook a single zircon geochronological study of five gneisses and two amphibolites from the MAC and seven rocks from the Manicaragua Batholith, which intrudes both the MAC and the Cretaceous Volcanic Arc. A SHRIMP zircon age of Ma for a trondhjemitic orthogneiss (MAC) from the Jicaya River dates the oldest phase of granitoid magmatism in this area and the entire Caribbean (Antillean) region. A tonalitic gneiss collected near the previous sample yielded an age of Ma, and a further tonalitic gneiss had an age of Ma, with one in...