Tectonic correlations of pre-Mesozoic crust from the northern termination of the Colombian Andes, Caribbean region

Reconnaissance zircon U/Pb SHRIMP, Ar-Ar, and Sm-Nd geochronology, petrological, and geochemical data were obtained from selected localities of two pre-Mesozoic metamorphic belts from the northern termination of the Colombian Andes in the Caribbean region. The older Proterozoic belt, with protoliths formed in a rift- or backarc-related environment, was metamorphosed at 6-8 kb and 760-810 degrees C during Late Mesoproterozoic times. This belt correlates with other high-grade metamorphic domains of the Andean realm that formed a Grenvillian-related collisional belt linked to the formation of Rodinia. The younger belt was formed over a continental arc at < 530-450 Ma in a Gondwanide position and metamorphosed at 5-8 kb and 500-550 degrees C, probably during the Late Paleozoic-Triassic, as part of the terranes that docked with northwestern South America during the formation of Pangea. A Mesozoic Ar-Ar tectonothermal evolution can be related to regional magmatic events, whereas Late Cretaceous-Paleocene structural trends are related to the accretion of the allocthonous Caribbean subduction metamorphic belts. Lithotectonic correlations with other circum-Caribbean and southern North American pre-Jurassic domains show the existence of different terrane dispersal patterns that can be related to Pangea's breakup and Caribbean tectonics. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.