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Geology
Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian continental collisional orogeny in southern
Mexico and its bearing on Gondwana-Laurentia connections
Fernando Ortega-Gutirrez, Mariano Elas-Herrera, Margarita Reyes-Salas, Consuelo Macas-Romo
and Robert Lpez
Geology 1999;27;719-722
doi: 10.1130/0091-7613(1999)027<0719:LOESCC>2.3.CO;2

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Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian continental collisional orogeny in

southern Mexico and its bearing on Gondwana-Laurentia connections
Fernando Ortega-Gutirrez
Mariano Elas-Herrera
Margarita Reyes-Salas
Consuelo Macas-Romo
Robert Lpez

Instituto de Geologa, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Coyoacn 04510, Mxico, D.F., Mxico

ABSTRACT
New zircon and monazite U-Pb data, tectonic mapping, and petrologic studies in key units
of the Acatln Complex show a previously undocumented phase of continental collision orogeny
of Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian age in southern Mexico. The event involved the partial eclogitization of oceanic lithosphere and continental crust, which traveled westward more than
200 km over siliciclastic metasedimentary rocks of the trench-forearc of an opposing continental
margin. The overriding eastern margin was the Oaxaquia microplate attached to Gondwana,
and the western overridden margin is considered to have been the eastern margin of Laurentia.
This event, which we name the Acatecan orogeny, was roughly synchronous with the possible
closure of Iapetus along the Appalachian margin, which involved, according to current models,
either the docking of peri-Gondwanan terranes such as Avalonia and Carolina or the direct collision between Gondwana and Laurentia. The permanence of Oaxaquia in northwestern Gondwana until the end of the Silurian, as suggested by Tremadocian to Silurian marine faunas in the
cover of Oaxaquia, is more consistent with the direct collision of Gondwana and Laurentia at
the end of the Ordovician, forming the Acatln Complex between.
INTRODUCTION
The birth and closure of Iapetus have been intensely scrutinized since Wilson (1966) asked the
question Did the Atlantic close and then
re-open? However, the nature, timing, and paleo-

geographic evolution of this major episode of geologic history have remained elusive (e.g., Mac
Niocaill et al., 1997; Dalziel, 1997). Southern
Mexico contains a small and yet probably critical
piece of the worlds Paleozoic orogens, containing

an almost complete record of pre-Mississippian

Paleozoic ocean closure and its consequent continental interactions. The Acatln Complex (OrtegaGutirrez, 1993; Yaez et al., 1991) forms the
basement of the Mixteco terrane and with the
Grenvillian Oaxacan Complex on the east define a
continental block about which younger Paleozoic
and Mesozoic terranes accreted to southern
Mexico (Fig. 1). Regional stratigraphic relationships of continental and marine deposits of Early
Mississippianmiddle Permian age, which unconformably cover Devonian granitoids stitching the
contact between the Oaxacan (Grenvillian) and
Acatln Complexes, support a pre-late Paleozoic
age for their tectonic juxtaposition. These data,
together with the presence of (1) eclogitized continental and ophiolitic rocks in the Acatln Complex
and (2) a major thrust nappe that implies longrange tectonic transport, led Ortega-Gutirrez
(1993) to propose that an early to middle Paleozoic
continent-continent collisional orogeny occurred

Figure 1. Tectonostratigraphic setting of Acatln

Complex of southern Mexico. Guerrero, Cuicateco, and
Chatino terranes are Mesozoic in age, whereas Zapoteco and Maya terranes
have Grevillian granulitic
basement. In index map,
Oligocene and PlioceneQuaternary volcanic rocks
of Sierra Madre Occidental
(SMOCC) and Trans-Mexican volcanic belt (TMVB),
respectively, are included.

Data Repository item 9960 contains additional material related to this article.
Geology; August 1999; v. 27; no. 8; p. 719722; 5 figures.

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Gutirrez, 1993); the complex can be subdivided
into two principal tectonic units separated by a
major thrust overlapped by a weakly metamorphosed and strongly deformed Devonian volcanosedimentary sequence known as the Tecomate Formation (Fig. 3). The lower plate consists
of a thick package of metasedimentary rocks
(Cosoltepec, Chazumba, and Magdalena Formations), here interpreted as trench and forearc
deposits of a convergent continental margin. The
lithotectonic interpretation of this lower package
was mainly based on its siliciclastic composition,
extreme thickness, and the presence of ocean-floor
fragments in the Cosoltepec Formation (Fig. 3),
preliminarily dated as 452 22 Ma (whole-rock
Rb-Sr minimal age; Richard Armstrong, 1979,
written commun.). The upper plate (Xayacatln
Formation and Esperanza Granitoids) is formed
by eclogitized mafic and ultramafic rocks interlayered with pelitic and siliceous metasedimentary rocks, structurally overlain by high-pressure
granites and migmatites. Virtually the entire
allochthon was mylonitized and retrogressed during its low-angle emplacement, but the major
thrust that separates the plates was subsequently
folded twice along northeast- to northwest-trending recumbent and upright structures (Fig. 2). The
two tectonically superposed units were exhumed
and covered by the Tecomate Formation, and
intruded by the La Noria (371 34 Ma) and Totoltepec (287 2 Ma) plutons (Yaez et al., 1991)
(Fig. 2). The Acatln Complex was then covered
with profound unconformity by shallow-marine
rocks as old as Early Mississippian (Fig. 3).

Figure 2. Geology of northern half of Acatln Complex. Cross-section A-B is ~130 km long and
drawn from Grenvillian Oaxacan Complex in east to westernmost limits of Paleozoic terrane just
south of Izcar de Matamoros. If unfolded, thrust nappe documents minimum overlap exceeding 200 km. Magdalena migmatite was projected onto section from exposures about 20 km to
south. Folded thrust nappe, extending along entire length of section, was exhumed from depths
in excess of 45 km. During Late OrdovicianSilurian, nappe probably rooted under Precambrian
crust near present Caltepec fault zone, as suggested by presence there of common serpentinite
bodies and relict high-pressure minerals.

in southern Mexico and that the Acatln Complex

essentially represented the suture.
However, the position of the Paleozoic Acatln
Complex west of the Grenvillian Oaxacan Complex, which is opposite to the AppalachianGrenville relationship of eastern North America,
was explained by a Cordilleran (Pacific terrane
accretion) evolution of southern Mexico or, alternatively, by the transfer of the Acatln terrane
from the Colombian Andes (Gondwana) to Laurentia during a late Paleozoic orogeny (Ruiz
et al., 1988). Although the possibility of previous
orogeny was not precluded, this major episode in
the tectonic history of southern Mexico and of
the Appalachian margin was considered to be
Devonian in age (Yaez et al., 1991). On the basis
of new U-Pb data and the structural and petrologic
study of the high-pressure Esperanza Granitoids,
720

we propose a Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian,

instead of Devonian, age for the main tectonic
phase that affected the Acatln Complex, and
interpret the event as a collisional orogeny related
to the closure of Iapetus and terrane transfer
between Gondwana and Laurentia. Although the
Acatln Complex underwent deformation, intrusion, and metamorphism in Devonian time, we
focus this work on the Late OrdovicianEarly
Silurian event, and we discuss two contrasting
paleogeographic scenarios for its evolution.
ACATLN COMPLEX
The Acatln Complex forms the basement of
the Mixteco terrane in southern Mexico (Figs. 1
and 2). The stratigraphic and tectonostratigraphic
units that compose the complex were described in
detail elsewhere (Yaez et al., 1991; Ortega-

Esperanza Granitoids
This unit best preserves the age, metamorphic,
and structural elements that represent the main
orogenic event that shaped the Acatln Complex.
It consists of megacrystic K-feldspar augen
gneiss and extensive packets of migmatite, schist,
and minor amphibolite. Most rocks of the Esperanza unit are rich in metamorphic albite, epidote,
phengite, garnet, tourmaline, and rare rutile. All
lithologies are retrogressed, intensely folded, and
mylonitized. We infer that schist and migmatite
formed the host rock from which the granitic
megacrystic facies developed by anatexis associated with the early Paleozoic event. Although
no jadeite has been found in the Esperanza Granitoids, its common contents of high-silica phengite, grossular-rich garnet, pseudomorphs of
zoisite or epidote + phengite + albite garnet
after plagioclase, and relict rutile, suggest eclogite
facies for granitic rocks (Le Goff and Bellvre,
1990). The Esperanza Granitoids unit is therefore
interpreted as part of a continental slab composed
of granite and pelitic rocks that underwent anatexis and high-pressure metamorphism during a
collisional orogeny dated here as Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian. The peraluminous composition, high initial 87Sr/ 86Sr ratio (0.7172), Nd(0) =
10.0, and TDM of 1.59 Ga (Yaez et al., 1991)
support a Precambrian source for the granitoids.
GEOLOGY, August 1999

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However, the syntectonic character of the dated
pluton is clearly indicated by its sheet geometry,
similar high-pressure structural and metamorphic
fabrics in the granitoids and wall rocks, and
gradational contacts commonly seen between
granitic and migmatitic facies.
U-Pb Zircon and Monazite Ages
Probably the most controversial aspect of the
Acatln Complex has been the timing of the
orogeny that produced such an amazing variety
of tectonostratigraphic units. A comprehensive
attempt to date the Acatln Complex was made
by Yaez et al. (1991), but failed to find events in
the Ordovician. Our study of the Esperanza
augen granitoid at its type locality (Fig. 2) yielded
a lower intercept age of 440 14 Ma and an
upper intercept age of 1161 30 Ma (Fig. 4). The
data are given in Table 11. The lower intercept is
interpreted as the magmatic age of the rock; the
zircon fractions constraining the intersection are
colorless, elongated, and euhedral grains without
visible inclusions, and plot lower and near concordia. The upper intercept is better interpreted as
Grenvillian inherited radiogenic Pb in cores of
the multifaceted zircons. A nearly concordant
U-Pb monazite age of 418 18 Ma was also obtained from the granitoid sample (Fig. 4), providing independent support for the lower intercept as
the magmatic age of the granitoid. The syntectonic character of the intrusion, as argued here,
and the Devonian age of the crosscutting La Noria
granite, imply that deformation and high-pressure metamorphism accompanied or followed
closely the anatectic magmatism, the age of
which therefore probably dates the main orogenic event registered by the Acatln Complex as
Late OrdovicianEarly Silurian. The unconformable relationships of the Esperanza Granitoids with the overlying Tecomate Formation
and the crosscutting La Noria granite, both of
Devonian age, further support the early Paleozoic
isotopic age obtained here.
DISCUSSION
Because no early Paleozoic paleomagnetic or
paleontologic data from the Acatln Complex are
available, its paleogeographic evolution is very
poorly understood. Nevertheless, the new data presented in this paper, fixing better the timing and
styles of deformation and metamorphism in the
complex, may help to constrain that problem and
its role in Gondwana-Laurentia connections. Because the eastern block now in contact with the
Acatlan Complex is the Oaxacan Complex, the
Oaxaquia microcontinent (Ortega-Gutirrez et al.,
1995) of apparent Gondwanan affinity is considered to be the eastern overriding plate in the herein
proposed collisional Acatecan orogeny, dated as
1GSA Data Repository item 9960, Table 1, U-Pb
Analytical Results, is available on request from
Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140,
Boulder, CO 80301, editing@geosociety.org, or at
www.geosociety.org/pubs/drpint.htm.

GEOLOGY, August 1999

Figure 3. Composite
tectonostratigraphic column of Acatln Complex
representative of currently
exposed structural relief
of more than 20 km of
continental crust.

Figure 4. U-Pb concordia

diagrams for zircon and
monazite of Esperanza
Granitoids, Acatln Complex.

near the Ordovician-Silurian boundary. The western plate onto which the Acatln Complex and
Oaxaquia were thrusted is unfortunately not
exposed, and was essentially truncated during the
Paleozoic initiation of the present Pacific basin.
The Acatecan orogeny is roughly coeval with
major collisional events recorded in several segments of the Appalachian and Andean margins of
Iapetus, including the Ocloyic collisional orogeny
of the Argentinian Andes (Dalla-Salda et al.,
1992), the Caparonensis orogenic event in Colombia (Restrepo-Pace et al., 1997), and the accretion

of western Avalonia and Carolina terranes to Laurentia (van Staal, 1994; Keppie et al., 1996).
Recent models for the closure of Iapetus and
widening of the Rheic ocean in the Appalachian
margin require docking of peri-Gondwanan terranes such as western Avalonia and Carolina by
the end of the Ordovician (Keppie et al., 1996;
Mac Niocaill et al., 1997; Dalziel, 1997) or, alternatively, the full collision of the Andean margin
of Gondwana against eastern Laurentia (Miller
and Kent, 1988; Dalla-Salda et al., 1992; Dalziel
et al., 1994). In the first scenario (Fig. 5A), the
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Figure 5. Paleogeographic models for Late OrdovicianEarly
Silurian orogeny on margins of
Iapetus. A: Closure of Iapetus is
achieved by docking of periGondwanan terranes western
Avalonia-Carolina onto Laurentian Appalachian margin (modified from Mac Niocaill et al.,
1997). Oaxaquia plate (O) is
shown docking somewhere near
central Appalachian forming
Acatln Complex in suture. B:
Closure of Iapetus is ascribed
here to Middle to Late Ordovician collision of Gondwana and
Laurentia; in this case, Oaxaquia
formed edge of Gondwana that
overrode northern Laurentian
margin (modified from Dalziel
et al., 1994). Acatln Complex
formed in collisional suture.

Acatln Complex could have been part of the

Iapetus suture formed by the docking of an independent Oaxaquia microplate against the southeastern margin of Laurentia, south of the Avalonian terranes. In the second scenario (Fig. 5B),
Oaxaquia may have formed part of the Colombian margin of Gondwana that collided with Laurentia, causing the Acatecan orogeny in southern
Mexico. The first model would be more consistent with recent Late OrdovicianSilurian reconstructions (e.g., Mac Niocaill et al., 1997;
Dalziel, 1997) wherein Gondwana and Laurentia
are shown separated by a wide ocean in Late
OrdovicianEarly Silurian time. We argue, however, that the presence of early-middle Paleozoic
faunas with Gondwanan affinities in rocks overlying Grenvillian gneisses of Oaxaquia (Robison
and Pantoja-Alor, 1968; Boucot et al., 1997) and
early Paleozoic orogeny in Colombia strongly
support the permanence of Oaxaquia in Gondwana probably until the Silurian.
It is clear that supportive insights on any of the
models proposed here could readily come from
rigorous paleomagnetic, paleontologic, and additional geochronologic studies of early Paleozoic
rocks in southern Mexico, and in Colombia. Our
ongoing studies of the younger (Devonian) transcurrent boundary between the Acatln and Oaxacan complexes will better constrain the complex
evolution of this region.
CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of U-Pb zircon and monazite dating of a key tectonite (Esperanza Granitoids) of
the Acatln Complex, a Late OrdovicianEarly
Silurian orogenic phase (Acatecan orogeny) is
documented in southern Mexico. The high-pressure and continental characterization of their
granites and migmatites, which with large
eclogitic mafic and ultramafic bodies form a fartraveled thrust nappe apparently rooted beneath
Precambrian crust in the east, and the westward
thrusting of the nappe over siliciclastic forearc
rocks, strongly suggest a collisional orogeny closing an ocean basin probably related to Iapetus. We
722

further interpret the Acatecan orogeny as a full

collision between northwestern Gondwana and
eastern Laurentia. Given the strong northwestern
South American affinity of Silurian faunas of
northern Oaxaquia, as documented in northeastern Mexico (Boucot et al., 1997), we are more inclined to follow a closed Silurian Iapetus model.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was funded by Consejo Nacional de
Ciencia y Tecnologa grant 0101PT. J. Toms Vzquez
prepared polished thin sections for microprobe analyses. Careful and constructive criticisms of an earlier
version of this manuscript were made by Ian W. D.
Dalziel, and we thank Victor A. Ramos and Ben A. van
der Pluijm for helpful reviews.
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Revised manuscript received April 9, 1999
Manuscript accepted May 4, 1999

GEOLOGY, August 1999