Thermotectonic History of the Kluane Ranges and Evolution of the Eastern Denali Fault Zone in Southwestern Yukon, Canada

A new thermotectonic history of the Kluane Ranges and the Eastern Denali Fault Zone (EDFZ) reveals three distinct phases of cooling and exhumation over the last 100 million years. Rapid cooling occurred from ~95 to 75 million years ago, followed by a period of slow cooling until ~30 million years ago, with renewed rapid cooling continuing to the present. This study used apatite (U-Th)/He, zircon He, and fission-track dating, along with thermal history modeling, to constrain exhumation rates, which are highest near the EDFZ but lower than in the central Denali Fault Zone. The findings suggest that landscape evolution in the Kluane Ranges is directly linked to tectonic processes such as terrane accretion, flat-slab subduction, and transpressional deformation.

McDermott, R. G., Ault, A. K., Caine, J. S., & Thomson, S. N. (2019). Thermotectonic History of the Kluane Ranges and Evolution of the Eastern Denali Fault Zone in Southwestern Yukon, Canada. Tectonics, 38(8), 2983–3010. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019tc005545