Evolving heavy mineral assemblages reveal changing exhumation and trench tectonics in the Mesozoic Chugach accretionary complex, south-central Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska is one of the largest accretionary complexes on Earth. In this study, we examined the earliest phase of accretion in the Mesozoic McHugh Complex and Valdez Groups, exposed in SE Alaska. The oldest preserved fragment, the Mesomelange assemblage, is Jurassic (ca. 160–140 Ma) and consists of an ∼3-km-thick structural package of strongly deformed shaley materials with slices of oceanic cherts and basalts. Heavy minerals indicate dominant erosion from a magmatic arc source uplifted after the collision of the Wrangellia and the Talkeetna oceanic arc. A tectonic erosion event affected the forearc just prior to ca. 120 Ma and was likely caused by seamount collision, ridge subduction, or both. This was followed at 105 Ma by mass wasting of sandstone and conglomerates, preserved as the Graywacke-Conglomerate assemblage (ca. 105–83 Ma). Heavy minerals indicate continued flux from arc sources, but with significant changes suggesting a larger, more diverse catchment area. Erosion of deeper crustal sources provided high-Mg diopside and garnets to the trench. Faster sediment flux was caused by rock uplift triggered by final accretion of the Wrangellia-Peninsula terrane to North America. The start of large-scale accretion in Alaska roughly coincided with the initiation of Shimanto Complex accretion in Japan and can be understood as primarily linked to sediment supply driven by plate-margin tectonics rather than climatically induced erosion onshore.