Revisiting the Intermediate Sediment Repository Concept Applied to the Provenance of Zircon

Abstract

This paper revisits the intermediate sediment repository (ISR) concept applied to provenance, using a comparison of the detrital zircon population of Holocene beach sand from the southwest Portuguese coast with populations from their potential source rocks. The U–Pb age of detrital zircon grains in siliciclastic rocks allows for the interpretation of provenance by matching them with the crystallization ages of igneous source (protosource) rocks in which this mineral originally crystallized or which was subsequently recycled from it, acting as ISRs. The comparative analysis of the Precambrian, Paleozoic, and Cretaceous ages using recent statistical tools (e.g., kernel density estimator (KDE), cumulative age distribution (CAD), and multidimensional scaling (MDS)) suggests that the zircon age groups of Carboniferous, Triassic, and Pliocene-Pleistocene ISRs are reproduced faithfully in Holocene sand. Furthermore, the recycling of a protosource (Cretaceous syenite) in a sedimentary system dominated by ISRs is evaluated. It is argued that the ISR concept, which is not always taken into account, is required for a better understanding of the inherent complexity of local provenance and to differentiate sediment recycling from first- cycle erosion of an igneous rock.