Revisiting the Baja-British Columbia hypothesis: Argon-argon geochronology and paleomagnetism of the Ecstall, Butedale, and Smith Island plutons, British Columbia, Canada

The controversy concerning terrane displacements in western British Columbia, otherwise known as the Baja-BC hypothesis, is revisited using paleomagnetism, rock magnetism, and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology and thermal modeling. We studied three plutons in northwest British Columbia, the Ecstall, Butedale, and Smith Island plutons. The Ecstall pluton is the focus of this research as it has been the subject of considerable debate over the cause of systematic variations in paleomagnetic direction across the ∼25 km wide pluton. Hollister et al. (2004) proposed that magnetization carried by lamellar magnetism in ilmenite-hematite was variably reset during reheating by emplacement of the younger Quottoon plutonic complex on the eastern margin of the Ecstall pluton, thus causing the systematic variations in paleomagnetic direction. To test this hypothesis we conducted a number of studies on samples from the Ecstall pluton. First, a detailed mineralogic study using scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy found evidence of microstructural and mineralogic changes to the magnetic oxides of the Ecstall pluton as a function of distance from the Quottoon plutonic complex. Second, rock magnetic experiments on single crystals of Fe-Ti oxides confirm changes to the magnetic properties of single crystals that are related to both microstructure and distance from the Quottoon plutonic complex. Third, spatial trends in 40Ar/39Ar cooling ages from hornblende and biotite were found to be consistent with reheating by the Quottoon plutonic complex. In addition to reheating by the Quottoon plutonic complex, thermal modeling suggests that spatial trends in 40Ar/39Ar cooling ages are most consistent with a thermal history that also includes northeast side up tilt of the Ecstall. The Smith Island and Butedale plutons do not show evidence for tilting in their 40Ar/39Ar cooling age trends, and paleomagnetic directions from these plutons are approximately concordant with the directions from the western part of the Ecstall when the Ecstall directions are corrected for 25° of northeast side up tilt. The ∼60° inclinations of the Smith Island and Butedale plutons, and tilt-corrected western Ecstall directions are consistent with 2,500 km of northward translation of the western most terrane of British Columbia, which is consistent with the Baja-BC hypothesis.