Abstract
The Little Rincon thrust fault is a mylonitic shear zone that juxtaposes Middle Proterozoic Continental Granodiorite over metasedimentary rocks of Proterozoic and early Paleozoic age. This fault is structurally beneath the San Pedro detachment fault and associated ductile deformational fabrics, which formed during early Oligocene to early Miocene time. A syntectonic leucogranite sill within the Little Rincon shear zone yields a U-Pb concordia-intercept age of 66 ±10 Ma for zircon and a concordant age of 51 ±2 Ma for fractions composed of monazite and xenotime. This demonstrates that compressional deformation in the Catalina and Rincon mountains is generally coeval with Laramide thrust faults that extend at least from southeastern California to southeastern Arizona. A peraluminous granite pluton that truncates the shear zone but displays extension-related fabrics yields a lower-intercept age of 24 ±12 Ma for zircon and an age of 30 ±6 Ma for monazite. This indicates that some peraluminous plutons in the region were emplaced during regional crustal extension.
