AGE OF THE JACOBSVILLE SANDSTONE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIDCONTINENT RIFT

A crucial constraint on the evolution of the Midcontinent Rift (MCR) comes from the roughly flat-lying Jacobsville sandstone, Bayfield group, and other equivalent sediments (JBE) that overlie the dipping volcanics and sediments deposited in the MCR basin. The MCR’s “failure” - the ending of volcanism and extension and thus its failure to develop into a new ocean basin - has been attributed to compression during the Grenville orogeny, the series of collisions that assembled Amazonia and other continents into the supercontinent of Rodinia from ~1.3 Ga - ~0.95 Ga. The JBE’s age is poorly constrained, with proposed ages ranging from ~1100 – ~542 Ma. Many analyses assume that the JBE are either post-rift sediments deposited in the thermal subsidence stage or syntectonic strata associated with the inversion of the rift. In this view, deformation of the JBE by reverse faults including the Keweenaw and Douglas faults occurred at ~1.060 Ga, reflecting Grenville compression ending the MCR’s evolution. However, paleomagnetic, structural, compositional, and detrital zircon data suggest that these units are much younger than previously thought, so much of the deformation thought to have occurred at ~1.06 Ga is likely much younger. If so, instead of the MCR forming by isolated midplate volcanism and failing due to Grenville compression, a more plausible scenario is that it formed as part of the rifting of Amazonia from Laurentia and became inactive once seafloor spreading was established. New zircon data from planned studies should help resolve this question.