Radiometric Dating of a Complex Polydeformational and Polymetamorphic Orogen, Central and Western New England

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In central and western New England both the Taconic and the Acadian orogenies were involved in the evolution of the eastern edge of North America during the lower Paleozoic. Traditionally these have been treated as separate events of Ordovician and Late Silurian-early Devonian age respectively. Recent work has produced a model for this area that proposes that the two events were actually part of a continuum of tectonic processes that operated as the ancient proto-Atlantic ocean closed. The study will involve U-Pb geochronology of zircons, monazites, sphenes and apatites to constrain both the protolith ages of key units in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the ages of their peak metamorphism.