ABSTRACT

Rb-Sr geochronometry has been used in several studies in an effort to date pseudotachylyte and therefore the fault hosting the pseudotachylyte and the tectonism that produced the faulting. The usual procedure has been the “thin-slab” technique, which in metamorphic rocks involves construction of an isochron using whole rock analyses of adjacent but compositionally different slices of rock, and is based on the assumption of isotopic equilibrium between the slices. In attempts to date pseudotachylyte, analyses have been obtained using a pseudotachylyte vein and the immediately adjacent host rock. Such studies commonly yield: 1) apparent ages with high errors owing to small a small range of Rb/Sr values or to “scatterchron” data; 2) host rocks not plotting on the same isochron or scatterchron defined by the pseudotachylyte; 3) apparent dates that are inconsistent with other estimates of the time of faulting; or 4) apparent ages that are not independently constrained. These studies commonly fail to record the type of pseudotachylyte vein utilized; injection veins are commonly larger and more obvious targets for collecting but are likely to yield geologically meaningless dates. A Rb-Sr geochronometric study of pseudotachylyte from the North Cascade Mountains, Washington, reveals: 1) an apparent age older than the likely age of the pseudotachylyte; 2) pseudotachylyte and host rock chemical and isotopic characteristics indicating that the pseudotachylyte was not the result of bulk melting of normal schist; and 3) metasomatism prior to pseudotachylyte formation likely affected both the protolith and what is now the host rock. In light of previous studies, the new data, and related information regarding fault-related metasomatism, three closed system models and one open system model for pseudotachylyte formation are proposed. These models make specific predictions regarding apparent whole rock-pseudotachylyte dates, microstructural features, and the relationship between the whole-rock pseudotachylyte date and the whole rock-biotite Rb-Sr dates in the same rock. The models suggests pseudotachylyte-host rock dating is unlikely to produce real ages of pseudotachylyte formation. Worse, because many pseudotachylytes apparently form during cooling and uplift, the technique will instead yield a seemingly reasonable but geologically meaningless date. Certain approaches to the problem, including a microstructural analysis coupled with a whole rock-biotite age on the same rock, may yield an actual age of pseudotachylyte formation, but the assumptions made heretofore about the behavior of the Rb-Sr system at the time of pseudotachylyte formation are questionable.