RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 12, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2011ES000504, 2011

Eocene arc-continent collision in northern Kamchatka, Russian Far East

Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

John I. Garver

Geology Department, Union College, Schenectady, New York, USA.

Mikhail N. Shapiro

Institute of the Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Mark T. Brandon

Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Jeremy K. Hourigan

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.

Abstract

The collision of the Cretaceous Olutorsky Island Arc with eastern Eurasia margin in the northwest Pacific is a critical event in Cenozoic evolution of the Pacific Rim. The timing of synorogenic flysch deposition (Paleocene–Middle Eocene, as young as 45–50 Ma), cross-cutting Shamanka pluton (45 Ma), and an overlap sequence of the Kinkil volcanics (45 Ma) tightly bracket the timing of collision of the far-traveled Olutorsky terrane to the Middle Eocene. This collision may have driven change in plate movement that resulted in the establishment of the Aleutian Arc at this time, which trapped a fragment of the Kula plate (now in the Bering Sea).

Received 27 May 2011; accepted 8 June 2011; published 20 June 2011.

Keywords: Kamchatka; Olutorsky Arc; Eocene collision; fission-track and U/Pb dating; zircon; nanoplankton

Citation: Soloviev, Alexey V., John I. Garver, Mikhail N. Shapiro, Mark T. Brandon, Jeremy K. Hourigan (2011), Eocene arc-continent collision in northern Kamchatka, Russian Far East, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 12, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2011ES000504.