Early Paleozoic Blueschist from the Schist of Skookum Gulch, Eastern Klamath Mountains, Northern California

Late Ordovician blueschist from the schist of Skookum Gulch, eastern Klamath Mountains, California, is the oldest known blueschist in California and one of the oldest in North America. Lawsonite-bearing glaucophane schist occurs as lenses intimately interlayered with chlorite schist, quartz-albite schist, and dolomite marble. Detailed investigation of a portion of the Skookum Gulch schist demonstrates that these rock types share a common deformational and metamorphic history. The first deformation occurred during blueschist metamorphism and produced similar-style isoclinal folds and an axial-planar foliation. During subsequent deformations, parallel-style open to tight folds and local kink bands deformed foliation but produced no recognizable recrystallization. Major and selected trace elements, analyzed by XRF for 12 samples of mafic schist, show that the protoliths were broadly basaltic in composition ($SiO_{2} mostly ranges from 46 to 53 wt \%$) and that ocean-floor basalt affinities are suggested by plots of standard discriminant diagrams. A phengite Rb-Sr date of$447 \pm 9 Ma$(Late Ordovician) is statistically indistinguishable from previously published K-Ar dates and is interpreted as the time of blueschist-facies metamorphism. Mineral separates from one rock yield a date of$353 \pm 18 Ma$, suggesting resetting during a Devonian to Early Mississippian thermal event. The schist of Skookum Gulch is a critical component of the Middle Ordovician to Early Silurian Callahan event, which included volcanism, plutonism, metamorphism, deformation, and sedimentation and occurred in response to collisional tectonics. Paleontological and provenance information indicate that the Callahan event occurred relatively close to the North American continental margin. In this regard, features produced by the Callahan event record the earliest period of Phanerozoic plate convergence recognized within the U.S. Cordillera.