Tectonic implications of 40Ar/39Ar muscovite dates from the Mt. Haley stock and Lussier River stock, near Fort Steele, British Columbia

Abstract

The Mt. Haley and Lussier River stocks are located northeast of Cranbrook, B.C. near the south end of the Western Main Ranges of the Southern Canadian Rocky Mountains. Both are multiphase, potassium-feldspar porphyritic monzonite plutons that intrude lower Paleozoic miogeoclinal strata. They crosscut and thermally overprint the Lussier River fault and the thrust and fold structures in the east flank of the Purcell anticlinorium and the west limb of the Porcupine Creek anticlinorial fan structure. Muscovite from the Mt. Haley stock yielded a 40Ar/39Ar plateau age of 108.2 ± 0.7 Ma (2σ), and a single-crystal, step-heating analysis of muscovite from a skarn in the metamorphic aureole adjacent to the Lussier River stock gave a plateau date of 108.7 ± 0.6 Ma (2σ). These dates constrain the timing of thrusting and folding in this portion of the western Rocky Mountains and of the displacement along the Lussier River – St. Mary fault to pre-middle Albian.