The source of volcanic material in the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation on the Colorado Plateau has long been speculated upon, largely owing to the absence of similar-age volcanic or plutonic material cropping out closer than several hundred kilometers distant. These strata, however, together with Upper Triassic formations within El Antimonio and Barranca Group sedimentary rocks in northern Sonora, Mexico, yield important clues about the inception of Cordilleran magmatism in Triassic time. Volcanic clasts in the Sonsela Member of the Chinle Formation range in age from ca. 235 to ca. 218 Ma. Geochemistry of the volcanic clasts documents a hydrothermally altered source region for these clasts. Detrital zircons in the Sonsela Member sandstone are of similar age to the clasts, as are detrital zircons from the El Antimonio and Barranca Groups in Sonora. Most noteworthy about the Colorado Plateau Triassic zircons, however, are their Th/U ratios, which range from ~1 to 3.5 in both clast and detrital zircons. Thorium/uranium ratios in the Sonoran zircons, in contrast, range from ~0.4 to ~1. These data, together with rare-earth-element geochemistry of the zircons, shed light on likely provenance. Geochemical comparisons support correlation of clasts in the Sonsela Member with Triassic plutons in the Mojave Desert in California that are of the same age. Zircons from these Triassic plutons have relatively low Th/U ratios, which correspond well with values from El Antimonio and Barranca Group sedimentary rocks, and support derivation of the strata, at least in part, from northern sources. The Sonsela Member zircons, in contrast, match Th/U values obtained from Proterozoic through Miocene volcanic, volcaniclastic, and plutonic rocks in the eastern and central Mojave Desert. Similarly, rare-earth-element compositions of zircons from Jurassic ignimbrites in the Mojave Desert, though overlapping those of zircons from Mojave Desert plutons, also closely resemble those from Sonsela Member zircons. We use these data to speculate that erosion of Triassic volcanic fields in the central to eastern Mojave Desert shed detritus that became incorporated into the Chinle Formation on the Colorado Plateau.

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