U-Pb zircon age of metafelsite from the Pinney Hollow Formation; implications for the development of the Vermont Appalachians

Abstract

The Pinney Hollow Formation of central Vermont is part of a rift-clastic to drift-stage sequence of cover rocks deposited on the Laurentian margin during the development of the Iapetan passive margin in Late Proterozoic to Cambrian time. Conventional U-Pb zircon data indicate an age of 571+ or -5 Ma for a metafelsite from the Pinney Hollow Formation. Geochemical data indicate that the protolith for the metafelsite, now a quartz-albite gneiss or granofels, was rhyolite from a source that was transitional between a within-plate granite and ocean-ridge granite setting and probably came through partially distended continental crust. The transitional setting is consistent with previous data from metabasalts in the Pinney Hollow Formation and supports the idea that the source magma came through continental crust on the rifted margin of the Laurentian craton. The 571+ or -5 Ma age provides the first geochronologic age from the rift-clastic cover sequence in New England and establishes a Late Proterozoic age for the Pinney Hollow Formation. The Late Proterozoic age of the Pinney Hollow confirms the presence of a significant mapped thrust fault between the autochthonous and para-autochthonous rocks of the cover sequence. These findings support the interpretation that the Taconic root zone is located in the hinterland of the Vermont Appalachians on the eastern side of the Green Mountain massif.