Simon Fraser University. Earth Sciences

The Lower Cretaceous McMurray Formation is interpreted as a brackish-water, tidally influenced estuarine complex. The study area encompasses Townships 90-95, Ranges 10-14W4 in northeast Alberta. Facies analysis of 41 cored wells led to the identification and differentiation of large- and small-scale lateral accretion IHS associated with tidal-fluvial channels. Five sedimentary facies are assembled into four recurring facies associations to characterize these channel systems. Sedimentological and ichnological characteristics point to elevated physico-chemical stress in most large-scale channel successions, interpreted to be the consequence of carrying the bulk of the fluvial discharge through these trunk channel systems. By contrast, small-scale channels display less evidence of physico-chemical stress indicating they carried little fluvial flow. Abandoned channel deposits likewise show reduced paleoenvironmental stress. This study suggests that the deposits of small-scale channels and abandoned channels are the most suitable for assessing the degree of marine influence in the study area.

This thesis advances understanding of late Cenozoic landscape evolution and glaciation in southernmost South America using continental sedimentary deposits and landforms in the Lago Cardiel region in the foothills of the southern Patagonian Andes and along the Atlantic north and south of the Strait of Magellan. The evolution of the landscape in these two areas was determined through landform mapping and relative chronologic landform correlations. Paleomagnetic characteristics of late Cenozoic sediments and basalt flows and the stratigraphy and sedimentology of Pleistocene glacial sediments in sea cliffs and anthropogenic exposures provide a chronology and evidence of depositional environments during Pleistocene glaciations. The landscape in the Lago Cardiel area changed significantly following the last major period of tectonic uplift at the end of the Miocene. Large west-trending valleys that incise Miocene-aged basalt were abandoned by their formative rivers about 4.4 Ma. The closed basin that contains Lago Cardiel began to form on the relict plain surface before 4.0 Ma and grew in size throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene by a combination of erosion by small streams, deflation, colluviation, and possibly tectonic collapse. Drainage reorganizations occurred at about 4.0 Ma and 3.6 Ma, most likely initiated by increased aggradation or isostasy during Pliocene glaciations. Eolian, fluvial, and mass-movement processes continued to alter the landscape throughout the Pleistocene with higher rates during glacial periods. Evidence of at least three glaciations is recorded in the stratigraphic exposures at the Atlantic Coast and the shores of the Strait of Magellan. At Cabo Vírgenes and Bahía Posesión, two glacial drift units were deposited in a grounding-line environment. These sediments are normally magnetized and date to the Brunhes Chron (<0.78 Ma). The Tres de Enero highway cut exposes three subglacial tills deposited during the Great Patagonian Glaciation (GPG) – two normally magnetized tills that I assign to the early Brunhes Chron and a lower reversely magnetized till deposited during the Matuyama Chron (2.581-0.78 Ma). The reversely magnetized till and other reversely magnetized GPG sediments indicate that the earliest Pleistocene glaciations occurred before 0.78 Ma. In the Río Gallegos Valley, a 0.86 Ma basalt flow caps a thick unit of normally magnetized glaciofluvial gravel, which was probably deposited during the Jaramillo Subchron (1.075-0.991 Ma). This thesis provides a timeline for the evolution of the landscape of the Lago Cardiel region from the Miocene to the present. It also contributes to our understanding of the age and depositional environments of GPG and post-GPG 1 glacial events in the Strait of Magellan region by documenting the magnetic polarity of glacial sediments throughout the region.

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Peak metamorphism of the Wolverine metamorphic complex (WMC) occurred at conditions of 770°-830°C and 7.2-10.4 kbars, and was accompanied by partial melting and the development of tight to isoclinal northeast-vergent folds that are axial planar to a transposition foliation. The WMC is modelled as a diffuse northeast-vergent shear zone that formed beneath a southwest-vergent panel of rocks as the orogenic wedge detached and translated northeastward during Mesozoic contraction. Juxtaposition of Middle Jurassic greenschist-facies upper crustal rocks against upper amphibolite-facies rocks of the WMC, which contain Eocene 40Ar/39Ar cooling ages, suggests that the WMC remained at deep crustal levels until it was rapidly exhumed in the Eocene along the normal Wolverine fault. Mineral reaction and disequilibrium textures indicate a near- isothermal decompression path from 7.2-10.4 kbars to below 4 kbars, corresponding to a minimum of 11 km of exhumation prior to cooling below ~650°C.

The lowest structural and stratigraphic levels of the Yukon-Tanana terrane and the structurally underlying parautochthonous North American margin rocks were metamorphosed at similar conditions (7.5 – 9 kbar; 600 – 680 °C) and share a common style of deformation, characterized by the transposition of lithologic contacts and primary compositional layering into a regional ductile foliation (ST) with at least one generation of intrafolial isoclinal folds. Equilibrium assemblage modeling and in situ U-Th-Pb SHRIMP dating of monazite are used to place quantitative constraints on the conditions and timing of deformation, metamorphism and subsequent decompression. These data reveal that these fabrics, and the associated metamorphism, did not develop during a single tectono-metamorphic event. Rather, ductile deformation and high-grade metamorphism developed diachronously. Rocks deformed and metamorphosed in the Permo-Triassic and Early Jurassic were exhumed in the Early Jurassic, while rocks to the northeast in the Finlayson domain were buried, heated and ductiley deformed at mid- crustal levels (~25 km depth) from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous (c. 169 – 142 Ma). Metamorphism continued at an even deeper crustal level (~ 30 km depth, as recorded in the Australia Mountain domain), propagating downward into the parautochthonous North American crust in the Early Cretaceous (c. 146 – 118 Ma). Together, these data reveal a spatial and temporal pattern of structurally downward younging deformation and metamorphism that corresponds with the foreland-directed growth of a critically tapered orogenic wedge. In this model, rocks in front of the wedge are episodically underthrust downward into a distributed, high-grade transposition shear zone at 25 to 30 kilometres depth near the base of the overriding wedge. Rocks previously underthrust, buried and metamorphosed are progressively exhumed to higher structural levels within the wedge, as the upper crust enters a state of extension in order to maintain a critically tapered wedge. Rocks that occupied the mid-crustal shear zone in the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (Finlayson and Australia Mountain domains) were exhumed in the mid-Cretaceous along southeast-directed (orogen-parallel) extensional faults, from beneath a supracrustal ‘lid’ that had previously been metamorphosed and ductiley deformed at amphibolite facies in the Permo-Triassic and Early Jurassic.

Quaternary glacial and non-glacial sediment exposed at White River and Silver Creek provide a record of environmental change in southwest Yukon for much of the late- Middle to Late Pleistocene. Eighteen sites at White River, located beyond the marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 2 glacial limit, contain thick accumulations of till, loess, peat, gravel and glaciolacustrine silt and clay, with tephras, paleosols, plant and insect macrofossils and large mammal fossils. Radiocarbon ages and eleven tephra beds constrain two tills to MIS 4 and 6. These tills correlate to the Gladstone and Reid glaciations and represent the penultimate and maximum all-time limits of the St. Elias lobe of the northern Cordilleran Ice Sheet. Two peat beds located between these tills indicate that interglacial conditions existed in the area during MIS 5e and 5a. Pond sediment deposited during mid-MIS 5 suggests that the sites were covered by an open birch tundra at this time. The MIS 3/2 transition was marked by a treeless, dry steppe- tundra populated by mammoth, horse and bison. The eleven Silver Creek sites, located ~200 km up-ice, contain a similar record of glacial and non-glacial sediment. Infrared-stimulated luminescence (IRSL) and radiocarbon dating constrain the glacial deposits at these sites to MIS 2, 4, either MIS 7 or 6, and to two Early to Middle Pleistocene, Pre-Reid glaciations. Tilting of glaciolacustrine beds of up to 1.9 mm/yr may be from uplift along the Denali fault since MIS 7. Pollen and macrofossils analyses from overlying MIS 3-aged sediment suggest that the environment was dominated by herbs and forbs, with few shrubs and almost no tree pollen at this time. Combined, the White River and Silver Creek sites contain a record of glacial and non-glacial conditions in southwest Yukon since the Middle Pleistocene. The glacial limits in southwest Yukon are markedly different from those in central Yukon. In southwest Yukon, the glacial limits are closely-spaced and were more extensive in the Middle to Late Pleistocene than in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. In central Yukon, glacial limits are separated by up to 300 km and were most extensive in the latest Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. This suggests that different forcing mechanisms controlled the extents of the St. Elias and Selwyn lobes during successive glaciations. Boundary conditions such as varying substrates, topography, moisture pathways and atmospheric circulation likely had a greater affect than tectonics and sea level on these glacial limits throughout the Plio-Pleistocene.

The Quaternary geology of Howard’s Pass was studied by creating a 1:50 000- scale terrain inventory map of the area and examining the ice-flow history of the region. Four stages of ice flow occurred in Howard’s Pass during the late Wisconsinan McConnell glaciation. The first stage is marked by ice growth from local cirques. During the second stage, an ice divide developed east of the Nahanni River, with ice flowing southwest across Howard’s Pass. During continued ice sheet growth in stage 3, the ice divide either migrated or a second divide grew to the southwest in the Logan Mountains and ice flowed northward across the study area. Stage 4 is marked by deglaciation and topographically controlled ice-flow. This last phase of ice-flow is the most important for drift prospecting in the valley bottoms. Conversely, drift transport directions at higher elevation are likely remnant from earlier stages of ice-flow. To investigate the potential of till and mobile-metal-ion geochemistry for drift prospecting in Howard’s Pass, a survey was conducted over a known deposit. The promising results from this survey suggest that these are possible tools for future exploration in other drift-covered areas of Howard’s Pass.

This thesis characterizes the transfer of magmatic volatiles through the mantle and the crust to the atmosphere through the integration of melt inclusion data for pre-eruptive volatile contents with surface measurements of volcanic degassing (recorded in micro-gravity changes and volcanic fumarole and plume gas compositions) at two contrasting volcanoes: Sierra Negra, Galápagos Islands and Kawah Ijen, Indonesia. In particular, it explores the process of fluid transfer in the mantle, the partitioning of volatile elements during mantle melting and degassing of the magma through the crust, and the effect of near-surface (e.g., interactions with groundwater and hydrothermal fluids), and surface processes (e.g., cooling and mixing with air) on the gas species. The effects of differences in initial volatile content and internal volcano structure on the types of eruptions and emissions recorded at each volcano are also discussed. The comparison of Sierra Negra and Kawah Ijen volcanoes reveals that differences in style of volcanic activity are primarily a function of magmatic plumbing system as opposed to differences in initial volatile content. In both cases, permeability of the crust and degassing style have exerted a dominant control over the recent style of activity (last century). Recent eruptions at Sierra Negra are not necessarily associated with magma recharge into shallow reservoirs but can be caused by subtle changes in the pressure regime of a magma chamber, a process which is closely associated with degassing and system permeability. Large explosive eruptions at Kawah Ijen are currently impeded by the open system (permeable) flow of magma and gas through the plumbing system. Hydrothermal systems play an important role in controlling the permeability of a system and the composition of the gases measured at the surface. The comparison of theoretically modeled gas compositions with actual measured compositions is an effective approach to studying the influence of hydrothermal systems at open vent volcanoes.