Sedimentology and provenance of the Upper Jurassic Naknek Formation, Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska: Bearings on the accretionary tectonic history of the Wrangellia composite terrane
Analysis of the Upper Jurassic Naknek Formation in the Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska, documents synorogenic sedimentation in a forearc basin along the outboard (southern) margin of the allochthonous Peninsular terrane during accretion to the western North American continental margin. New geochronologic, sedimentologic, and compositional data defi ne a two-part stratigraphy for the Naknek Formation. Microfossil, megafossil, and U-Pb clast ages document early Oxfordian to early Kimmeridgian deposition of the lower 690 m of the Naknek Formation and early Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian deposition of the upper 225 m of the Naknek Formation. Lithofacies and paleocurrent data from the lower Naknek Formation demonstrate initial deposition on a high-gradient, southward-dipping basin fl oor. Submarine mass fl ows deposited poorly sorted, cobble-boulder conglomerate in proximal fan-delta environments. Gravelly mass fl ows transformed downslope into sandy turbidity currents on a muddy prodelta slope. During early Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian time, fan-delta environments were replaced by lower gradient marine shelf environments characterized by deposition of cross-stratifi ed sandstone and bioturbated mudstone. Source-diagnostic clasts, feldspathic sandstone compositions, southwarddirected paleocurrent indicators, and U-Pb zircon ages of plutonic clasts (167.6 ± 0.3 Ma; 166.5 ± 0.2 Ma, 164‐159 Ma, 156.2 ± 0.4 Ma) indicate that the Naknek Formation was derived primarily from volcanic and plutonic source terranes exposed along the northern basin margin in the southern Talkeetna Mountains. Geologic mapping documents the Little Oshetna fault, a newly identifi ed northward-dipping reverse fault that bounds the northern margin of the Naknek Formation in the Talkeetna Mountains. The concentration of boulder-rich mass-fl ow deposits in the footwall of the fault in combination with geochronologic and compositional data suggest that sedimentation was coeval with Late Jurassic shortening along the fault and exhumation of plutonic source terranes exposed in the hanging wall of the fault. From a regional perspective, coarse-grained forearc sedimentation and pluton exhumation along the outboard (southern) segment of the Peninsular terrane were coeval with crustal-scale shortening and synorogenic sedimentation in retroarc basins along the inboard (northern) margin of the Wrangellia terrane (Kahiltna, Nutzotin, and Wrangell Mountains basins). We interpret the regional and synchronous nature of Late Jurassic crustal-scale deformation and synorogenic sedimentation in south-central Alaska as refl ecting either initial collision of the Wrangellia and Peninsular terranes with the former continental margin of western North America or amalgamation of the two terranes prior to collision.