• journal_title：Geology
• Contributor：Jürgen Michel ; Lukas Baumgartner ; Benita Putlitz ; Urs Schaltegger ; Maria Ovtcharova
• Publisher：Geological Society of America
• Date：2008-
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.1130/G24546A.1
• journal_abbrev：Geology
• issn：0091-7613
• volume：36
• issue：6
• firstpage：459

The Miocene Paine Granite in the Torres del Paine Intrusive Complex, southern Chile, is an extraordinary example of an upper crustal mafic and granitic intrusion. The granite intruded as a series of three sheets, each one underplating the previous sheet along the top of the basal Paine Mafic Complex. High-precision U/Pb geochronology on single zircons using isotope dilution–thermal ionization mass spectrometry yields distinct ages of 12.59 ± 0.02 Ma and 12.50 ± 0.02 Ma, respectively, for the first and last sheet of the laccolith. This age relationship is consistent with field observations. The zircon ages define a time frame of 90 ± 40 k.y. for the emplacement of a >2000-m-thick granite laccolith. These precise U-Pb zircon ages permit identification of the pulses in a 20 k.y. range. The data obtained for the Paine Granite fill the gap between 100 k.y. and 100–1000 yr pulses described in the literature for crustal magma chambers.