Discussion on Detrital zircon geochronology of the Carboniferous Baixo Alentejo Flysch Group (South Portugal); constraints on the provenance and geodynamic evolution of the South Portuguese Zone, Journal, vol. 172, 294-308

Abstract

In their recent study, Rodrigues et al. (2014) attempted a provenance analysis of the Carboniferous Baixo Alentejo Flysch Group (SW Iberia), discussing variability over time in sources of South Portuguese Zone turbidites. The U–Pb ages presented by these authors are similar to those previously obtained by Pereira et al. (2012a, 2013). A comparison of U–Pb age distributions obtained in turbidites from the two studies using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test indicates that they are not significantly different at the 5% confidence level, increasing the statistical significance of the detrital zircon populations of each stratigraphic formation. However, the interpretations put forward in the two studies are considerably different.