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Geochemical evidence for the origins of igneous and sedimentary rocks of the Highland Border, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

A. H. F. Robertson  and
W. G. Henderson
A. H. F. Robertson
Affiliation:
Grant Institute of Geology, University of Edinburgh, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, Scotland.
W. G. Henderson
Affiliation:
British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3LA, Scotland.
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Abstract

Narrow, intermittent, fault-bounded outcrops forming the largely Ordovician Highland Border Complex comprise terrigenous-derived turbidities, a dismembered ophiolite, and ophiolite-derived sediments.

New major- and trace-element analyses of the mafic igneous rocks confirm that two main groups exist. One, represented in outcrops the length of the Highland Boundary fault-zone, has a mostly MORB-like chemistry with some trace-element compositions conventionally pointing to genesis above a subduction zone. The other group, found more locally, has an alkalic ‘within-plate’ character. Amphibolites interpreted as ophiolitic ‘sole’ rocks are chemically similar to the MORB-type mafic extrusive rocks. X-ray diffraction of the sedimentary rocks reveals kaolinite to be widespread and this is attributed to tropical weathering of the Highland Border Complex beneath a (?mid-Devonian) unconformity surface. New major- and trace-element analyses show that the turbidities of the Highland Border Complex were derived from a terrigenous terrane similar to that which supplied the Dalradian Supergroup. Inter-lava sediments reflect varied terrigenous (distal turbidites), hydrothermal (iron oxide sediments), mafic extrusive (volcaniclastic silt) and biogenic (jaspers) provenances. The ophiolite-derived Highland Border Complex sediments also have a terrigenous component. Unlike, for example, the early Ordovician rocks of the South Mayo trough (Ireland), coeval differentiated volcanic material is not a significant component of the Complex.

No one existing model adequately explains all the available data. We favour an origin of the Complex in the Ordovician as a small Gulf of California-type marginal basin which was later tectonically emplaced in stages involving a long history of alternating extension, strike-slip and compression.

Keywords

alterationbasaltdeep sea sedimentkaolinitemid-ocean ridge basaltophioliteOrdovicianstrike-sliptrace-element
Type
Highland Border and Dalradian terranes
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 75 , Issue 2: Deep Geology of the Midland Valley of Scotland and Adjacent Regions. Bicentenary Symposium , 1984 , pp. 135 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1984

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