The Bidahochi Basin hypothesis: Hopi Buttes volcanics and paleolake
marks location of local, small-scale lithosphere foundering and
asthenosphere upwelling beneath the Colorado Plateau
Abstract
Spatial correspondence of topographic features, upper mantle structure,
and locations of heightened late Miocene exhumation rates has led to the
proposal that lithosphere-asthenosphere interaction plays a central role
in driving the uplift and incision of the Colorado Plateau. These
observations have generally been based on long wavelength features
(> c. 250 km) indicative of large scale removal of the
Colorado Plateau mantle lithosphere and subsequent asthenosphere
upwelling, and has led to the hypothesis that convective removal may be
responsible for much of the 2-3 km of Colorado Plateau surface uplift.
However, except one currently active downwelling that can be seismically
imaged, there is little evidence of the individual occurrences of
lithosphere foundering that contributed to the bulk removal of
lithosphere. We propose that the lacustrine lower member of the
Bidahochi formation in the Navajo Nation may be evidence of such an
occurrence. Fine grained lacustrine sedimentation from 16-14 Ma was
associated with rapid sediment accumulation, followed by a condensed
section deposited from 14-8 Ma, and finally mantle-derived late Miocene
to Pliocene magmatism (Hopi Buttes volcanic field) from 8-5 Ma. The
Pliocene Hopi Buttes volcanic rocks likely erupted into an ephemeral
lake or playa, and are generally nephelinites with up to 10% MgO,
originating from high-T decompression melting from as deep as 70 km.
Juvenile epsilon Nd values up to +4 indicates at least a partial melt
component from an isotopically depleted mantle source. The most
plausible explanation for the spatial coincidence and temporal sequence
of lacustrine deposition, slowed sedimentation, high-Mg, mantle-derived
magmatism is that these are all associated with 1.) descent of
lithosphere and associated subsidence, 2.) subsequent lithosphere
removal, rising asthenosphere, and local uplift (on the order of tens or
hundreds meters), 3.) magmatism derived from asthenosphere upwelling.
Alternative hypotheses for the local subsidence at the Bidahochi Basin
include deposition in the regional syncline associated with the adjacent
Defiance uplift, but this is less likely, given that apatite
thermochronology dates indicate that Defiance uplift was rapidly exhumed
at c. 55 Ma, far before active lacustrine deposition in the Bidahochi
Basin.