Magnetic fabric and tectonic setting of the Early to Middle Jurassic felsic dykes at Pitt Point and Mount Reece, eastern Graham Land, Antarctica
Abstract
At Pitt Point, the east coast of Graham Land (Antarctic Peninsula), the Early to Middle Jurassic (Toarcian-Aalenian) rhyolite dykes form two coevally emplaced NNE-SSW and E-W trending sets. The nearly perpendicular dyke sets define a large-scale chocolate-tablet structure, implying biaxial principal extension in the WNW-ESE and N-S directions.
Along the nearby north-eastern slope of Mount Reece, the WNW-ESE set locally dominates suggesting variations in the direction and amount of extension. Magnetic fabric in the dykes, revealed using the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) method, indicates dip-parallel to dip-oblique (?upward) magma flow.
The dykes are interpreted as representing sub-volcanic feeder zones above a felsic magma source. The dyke emplacement was synchronous with the initial stages of the Weddell Sea opening during Gondwana break-up, but it remains unclear whether it was driven by regional stress field, local stress field above a larger plutonic body, or by an interaction of both.