Ancestral trans–North American Bell River system recorded in late Oligocene to early Miocene sediments in the Labrador Sea and Canadian Great Plains

Abstract

Abstract The Bell River hypothesis proposes that an ancestral, transcontinental river occupied much of northern North America during the Cenozoic Era, transporting water and sediment from the North American Cordillera to the Saglek Basin on the eastern margin of the Labrador Sea. To explore this hypothesis and reconstruct Cenozoic North American drainage patterns, we analyzed detrital zircon grains from the Oligocene–Miocene Mokami and Saglek formations of the Saglek Basin and Oligocene–Miocene fluvial conglomerates in the Great Plains of western Canada. U-Pb detrital zircon age populations in the Mokami and Saglek formations include clusters at <250 Ma, 950–1250 Ma, 1600–2000 Ma, and 2400–3200 Ma. Detrital zircons with ages of <250 Ma were derived from the North American Cordillera, supporting the transcontinental Bell River hypothesis. Oligocene–Miocene fluvial strata in western Canada contain detrital zircon age populations similar to those in the Saglek Basin and are interpreted to represent the western headwaters of the ancient Bell River drainage. Strontium-isotope ratios of marine shell fragments from the Mokami and Saglek formations yielded ages between 25.63 and 18.08 Ma. The same shells have εNd values of −10.2 to −12.0 (average = −11.2), which are consistent with values of Paleozoic strata in western North America but are more radiogenic than the modern Labrador Current, Labrador Sea Water, and North Atlantic Deep Water values (εNd ~−12 to −25). As a freshwater source, the existence and termination of the Bell River may have been important for Labrador Sea circulation, stratification, and chemistry.