MSc student Leigh van Drecht has published a new fieldwork article in Yukon Exploration & Geology!
The Whitehorse trough of central Yukon is a Jurassic sedimentary basin that likely records the exhumation of the Intermontane terranes (Yukon-Tanana, Stikinia, Cache Creek) during a time of plate tectonic change along western North America. van Drecht and Beranek (2018) report new field observations from the Whitehorse trough and focus specifically on the depositional contact relationships between syntectonic strata of the Jurassic Laberge Group and underlying arc and arc-marginal rocks assigned to Stikinia. Pre-Early Jurassic unconformities in the Whitehorse area are consistent with variable basin topography throughout the Whitehorse trough. Our current research is integrating these geological field constraints with detrital zircon U-Pb and Hf isotope studies to more fully reconstruct the timing and significance of Jurassic sedimentation in central Yukon during the exhumation of the Intermontane terranes. This project is supported by the Yukon Geological Survey. |