U-Pb geochronology of the Western Channel Diabase, northwestern Laurentia: Implications for a large 1.59 Ga magmatic province, Laurentia's APWP and paleocontinental reconstructions of Laurentia, Baltica and Gawler craton of southern Australia

U-Pb baddeleyite ages of 1592 +/- 3 and 1590 +/- 4 Ma are reported for paleomagnetic sites in sheets and dykes of Western Channel Diabase (WCD) that intrude Proterozoic rocks of the flat-lying Hornby Bay Group in the Hornby Bay basin and the deformed volcanic-plutonic Great Bear Magmatic Zone of Wopmay orogen of northwestern Laurentia. A published WCD paleomagnetic pole at 9 degrees N, 115 degrees W (A(95) = 6 degrees) has been demonstrated primary. The new ages indicate that the WCD pole falls midway in time between poles for the 1.74 Ga Cleaver dykes and 1.48-1.42 Ga Elsonian-aged plutons, filling an important gap in the Proterozoic apparent polar wander path (APWP) for Laurentia. The WCD pole can be compared with poles reported from similar-aged magmatic units on other cratons in order to test paleocontinental reconstructions. A comparison of the Laurentian WCD pole with primary ca. 1.63 Ga and ca. 1.575 Ga poles for Baltica, along with an earlier comparison of precisely dated 1.27-1.255 Ga poles for Laurentia and Baltica, suggests that the two cratonic blocks drifted as a single entity with Baltica adjacent to eastern Greenland during the ca. 1.59-1.27 Ga interval. On the basis of less well constrained ca. 1.84-1.83 Ga poles from Laurentia and Baltica, it is possible that this reconstruction existed as early as ca. 1.83 Ga. The WCD is the same age as Wernecke breccias of the Wernecke and Ogilvie Mountains of northwestern Laurentia and bimodal Gawler Range Volcanics (GRV) and related Olympic Dam breccias of the Gawler craton. It has been proposed by others that the Gawler craton lay adjacent to northwestern Laurentia at 1.59 Ga, with the Olympic Dam and Wernecke breccias forming a large hydrothermal province. The primary WCD pole provides an opportunity to test Laurentia-Gawler craton reconstructions at 1.59 Ga. A paleopole has been reported for the GRV, although its primary or secondary nature is open to interpretation. If primary, or if acquired as an overprint during the later stages of 1.60-1.58 Ga Hiltaba-GRV magmatism, then a position for the Gawler craton adjacent to northwestern Laurentia is permitted. If the GRV pole is a later secondary overprint then a reliable comparison with Laurentian poles cannot be made. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.