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

在新英格兰中部和西部，塔克尼克和阿卡迪亚造山运动都参与了北美东部边缘在下古生代的演化。传统上，这些事件分别被视为奥陶纪和晚志留世-早泥盆世的独立事件。最近的工作为这一地区建立了一个模型，该模型提出，这两次事件实际上是随着古老的原始大西洋关闭而运行的一系列构造过程的一部分。这项研究将涉及锆石、独居石、辉石和磷灰石的U-Pb年代学，以限制佛蒙特州、马萨诸塞州和康涅狄格州关键单元的原岩年龄和它们的峰期变质年龄。

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.