Processes and rates of arc crust growth and differentiation in the Southern Sierra Nevada crustal section

This thesis presents a multidisciplinary investigation of the processes and timescales for the construction of arc crust, with a focus on the exposed crustal section in the southernmost Sierra Nevada Batholith, California. This section exposes plutons that were emplaced at pressures ranging from 3-10 kbars, as well as metamorphic wall rocks. Chapters 1 and 2 represent focused studies of the Bear Valley Intrusive Suite (BVIS), the dominant igneous component of the crustal section. Chapter 1 presents new magmatic structural data and whole rock geochemical data that highlight a discontinuity in the BVIS between a lower crust dominated by originally shallowly lying mafic cumulates and an upper crust dominated by steeply oriented felsic intrusives. These observations are used to constrain the thermal state of the arc during the emplacement of the BVIS. Chapter 2 is a high-precision CA-ID-TIMS U/Pb zircon geochronology study of the BVIS.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Klein, Benjamin Zachary.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Oliver Jagoutz.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121759

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/121759