Interpreting the Geochemistry of the Northern Peninsula Ranges Batholith Using Principle Component Analysis and Spatial Interpolation

The Cretaceous northern Peninsular Ranges batholith (PRB) exemplifies emplacement in a combination oceanic arc / continental margin arc setting. Two approaches that can aid in understanding its statistical and spatial geochemistry variation are principle component analysis (PCA) and GIS interpolation mapping. The data analysis primarily used 287 samples from the large granitoid geochemical data set systematically collected by Baird and Welday. Of these, 80 points fell in the western Santa Ana block, 108 in the transitional Perris block, and 99 in the eastern San Jacinto block.

In the statistical analysis, multivariate outliers were identified using Mahalanobis distance and excluded. A centered log ratio transformation was used to facilitate working with geochemical concentration values that range over many orders of magnitude. The data was then analyzed using PCA with IBM SPSS 21 reducing 40 geochemical variables to 4 components which are approximately related to the compatible, HFS, HRE, and LIL elements. The 4 components were interpreted as follows: (1) compatible [and negatively correlated incompatible] elements indicate extent of differentiation as typified by SiO₂, (2) HFS elements indicate crustal contamination as typified by Sr_i and Nb/Yb ratios, (3) HRE elements indicate source depth as typified by Sr/Y and Gd/Yb ratios, and (4) LIL elements indicate alkalinity as typified by the K₂O/SiO₂ratio.

Spatial interpolation maps of the 4 components were created with Esri ArcGIS for Desktop 10.2 by interpolating between the sample points using kriging and inverse distance weighting. Across-arc trends on the interpolation maps indicate a general increase from west to east for each of the 4 components, but with local exceptions as follows. The 15km offset on the San Jacinto Fault may be affecting the contours. South of San Jacinto is a west-east band of low Nb/Yb, Gd/Yb, and Sr/Y ratios. The highest Sr/Y ratios in the north central area that decrease further east may be due to the far eastern granitoids being transported above a shear zone. Along the western edge of the PRB, high SiO₂ and K₂O/SiO₂ are interpreted to result from sampling shallow levels in the batholith (2-3 kb), as compared to deeper levels in the central (5-6 kb) and eastern (4.5 kb) areas.