• journal_title：Lithosphere
• Contributor：D.B. Harris ; J. Toro ; A.V. Prokopiev
• Publisher：Geological Society of America
• Date：2013-02-01
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.1130/L250.1
• journal_abbrev：Lithosphere
• issn：1941-8264
• volume：5
• issue：1
• firstpage：98
• section：RESEARCH

The formation of the Amerasian Basin of the modern Arctic remains enigmatic in terms of both timing and method of formation. Most models used to describe its formation involve movement of the Arctic Alaska-Chukotka microplate across the basin’s current location. Detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology has been shown to be an inexpensive yet powerful method by which the tectonic correlation and proximity between multiple terranes over geologic time can be approximated. Five detrital zircon samples were collected from Late Jurassic sandstones from the Lower Yana River area and compared to previous results from detrital zircons collected from nearby Triassic strata. Jurassic samples had detrital zircon age populations of 147–210 Ma, 223–396 Ma, 1639–2183 Ma, and 2281–3116 Ma. Comparison of all detrital zircon ages from the Lower Yana River to those dated from Triassic and Jurassic sandstones of Chukotka, the Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt, and the In’yali-Debin synclinorium supports the interpretation that Chukotka was separated from the Kular area during the Triassic. Jurassic detrital zircon age populations suggest that the Anyui Ocean had closed by the Tithonian, bringing Chukotka to a location where it could be fed by similar depositional systems as the Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt and the Lower Yana River area. Sedimentological and detrital data presented here also suggest that the Yana fault does not represent a regional suture between the Kolyma-Omolon superterrane and the Siberian craton.