Tres Piedras Orthogneiss

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Tres Piedras Orthogneiss
Stratigraphic range: Statherian
Tres Piedras Orthogneiss.jpg
Knolls underlain by Tres Piedras Orthogneiss, Tres Piedras, New Mexico, USA
Type Pluton
Lithology
Primary Orthogneiss
Location
Coordinates 36°38′56″N105°59′24″W / 36.649°N 105.990°W / 36.649; -105.990
Region Tusas Mountains, New Mexico
Country United States
Type section
Named for Tres Piedras, New Mexico
Named byF. Barker
Year defined1958
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Tres Piedras Orthogneiss (the United States)
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Tres Piedras Orthogneiss (New Mexico)

The Tres Piedras Orthogneiss is a pluton in northern New Mexico. It has a U-Pb radiometric age of 1693 Mya, placing it in the Statherian period. [1]

Contents

Description

Tres Piedras Orthogneiss Tres Piedras Orthogneiss sample.jpg
Tres Piedras Orthogneiss

Though described as the Tres Piedras Granite in the earlier studies, the unit is more properly described as an orthogneiss. [2] The orthogneiss is pink to reddish-orange and shows faint to obvious foliation. Grain sizes are from 0.5 to 5 mm. Many of the quartz grains are fractured. With a modal composition of 42% quartz, 40% microcline, and 12% albite, it has the composition of an alkali feldspar granite. It has no contact metamorphism with the Moppin Complex, suggesting the country rock was only slightly cooler when the granite was injected. [3]

The orthogneiss crops out around the town of Tres Piedras, New Mexico and intrudes the Moppin Complex to the west in the Tusas Mountains. It may correlate with the San Miguel gneiss in the Nacimiento Mountains.

The pluton is interpreted as possibly a magma chamber associated with Vadito Group volcanism [4] or a stitching pluton associated with the Yavapai-Mazatzal orogenies. [5]

History of investigation

The unit was originally included in the Tusas Granite by Just in his 1937 survey of pegmatites in northern New Mexico. [6] but was designated as the Tres Piedras Granite by Barker in 1958. Barker included exposures near the town of Tres Piedras, along the Rio Tusas, and near Burned Mountain and Hopewell. [7] Wobus and Hedge removed the western outcrops from the pluton [8] based on an unreliable radiometric date, [9] but Davis et al. concluded that the Tusas Mountain orthgneiss is likely part of the Tres Piedras Orthogneiss. [10]

Footnotes

  1. Davis et al. 2011, p.180
  2. Davis et al. 2011, p.181
  3. Barker 1958, pp.59-61
  4. Barker 1958, p.61
  5. Davis et al. 2011, p.187
  6. Just 1937, pp.44-45
  7. Barker 1958, p.59
  8. Wobus and Hedge 1982
  9. Davis et al. 2011, p.59
  10. Davis et al. 2011, p.185

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