Detrital zircon provenance and transport pathways of Pleistocene-Holocene eolian sediment in the Pampean Plains, Argentina

The Pampas of Argentina contain a broad distribution of Pleistocene to Holocene loessic sediments and eolian dune deposits. Models describing the sediment provenance of this eolian system have, at times, conflicted. We address the provenance of these deposits through U-Pb detrital-zircon geochronology. Our results indicate broad similarity in age distributions between samples, with a dominant Permian-Triassic mode, and widespread but lesser Cenozoic, Devonian-Mississippian, Ediacaran-Cambrian, and Mesoproterozoic modes. These data are inconsistent with a large contribution of detritus from Patagonia as previously suggested. These data are consistent with very limited contribution of first cycle volcanogenic zircon to the Pampean eolian system, but abundances of older Neogene zircon indicate proto-sources in the Andes. The ríos Desaguadero, Colorado, and Negro contain populations that were likely within the dust production pathways of most of the loess, paleosol, and eolian dune deposits, but the derivation of the zircon ages in these sediments cannot be explained solely by these river systems. One statistical outlier, a loess sample from the Atlantic coast of the Pampa region, indicates quantitative similarity to the age spectra from the ríos Colorado and Negro, consistent with derivation from these subparallel rivers systems during subaerial exposure of the continental shelf under high global ice-volume. Another statistical outlier, a paleosol sample from the Río Paraná delta region, has zircon ages more closely associated with sediments in the Paraná region than in rivers south of the Pampa region. Collectively, these data point to the complexity of the Pampean eolian system and substantial spatial-temporal variation in this Pleistocene−Holocene eolian system.