Tectonic evolution of the Eastern Moroccan Meseta: from Late Devonian fore-arc sedimentation to Early Carboniferous collision of an Avalonian promontory Accotto, Cristina Martínez Poyatos, David Jesús Azor Pérez, Antonio Jabaloy Sánchez, Antonio Talavera Rodríguez, Cristina Evans, Noreen J. Azdimousa, A. Eastern Moroccan Meseta Eovariscan tectonic evolution Detrital zircons Debdou-Mekkam Massifs Provenance Geochronology This study was founded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain through the project PANGEATOR (CGL2015-71692-P) and the Doctoral scholarship BES-2016-078168. GeoHistory Facility instruments were funded via an Australian Geophysical Observing System grant provided to AuScope Pty Ltd. by the AQ44 Australian Education Investment Fund program. The NPII multicollector was obtained via funding from the Australian Research Council LIEF program (LE150100013). The authors want to express their gratitude to Dr. Manuel Francisco Pereira (University of Evora, Portugal) and Dr. Michel Villeneuve (Centre Europeen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Geosciences de l'Environnement, France) for their constructive reviews that helped to improve the quality of the original manuscript. Special thanks to Brad McDonald (Curtin University, Australia) for technical assistance regarding LA-ICPMS and Hf analyses, Profs. Abdelfatah Tahiri (University Mohammed V of Rabat, Morocco) and Hassan El Hadi (University Hassan II of Casablanca, Morocco) for their support during field work, Prof. Yvette Kuiper (Colorado School of Mines, USA) for her precious hints about the interpretation of Hf data, and Dr. Lorenzo Valetti for proofreading the manuscript. Supporting information can be obtained in Mendeley Data: https://doi.org/10.17632/b8fdbykmbx.1 (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/b8fdbykmbx/draft?a=eaae2da0-8e224056-861b-4824984f1c10). The deformed Paleozoic succession of the Eastern Moroccan Meseta crops out in relativelysmall and isolated inliers surrounded by Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks. Two of the largest inliers(Mekkam and Debdou) are characterized by a monotonous succession of slates and greywackes affected bypolyphasic folding that occurred at low‐to very low grade metamorphic conditions. New U‐Pb ages ondetrital zircon grains from the Debdou‐Mekkam metasediments constrain the maximal depositional age asLate Devonian, interpreted to be close to the true sedimentation age. Furthermore, theεHfvalues of theDevonian detrital zircons, together with the presence of a series of scattered zircon grains with ages betweenc. 0.9 and c. 1.9 Ga, suggest provenance from a subduction‐related magmatic arc located on the Avalonianmargin. The Debdou‐Mekkam massif is characterized by an Early Carboniferousfirst deformationalevent (D1), which gave way to a pervasive cleavage (S1) associated with plurikilometric‐scale, tight toisoclinal, overturned to recumbent folds. Later events (Dc) occurred at Late Carboniferous time andgenerated variably developed crenulation cleavages (Sc) associated with variously oriented metric‐tokilometric‐scale folds, which complicate the pattern of both D1 intersection lineations (L1) and axial traces.The restoration of this pronounced curved pattern yields originally SW‐NE‐oriented D1 fold axes withregional SE‐vergence. This important Early Carboniferous shortening and SE‐directed tectonic transport canbe explained by closure of the Rheic Ocean and thefirst phases of the collision between the northern passivemargin of Gondwana and an Avalonian promontory. 2020-11-09T08:06:43Z 2020-11-09T08:06:43Z 2020-04-20 journal article Published version: Accotto, C., Martínez Poyatos, D., Azor,A., Jabaloy‐Sánchez, A., Talavera, C.,Evans, N. J., & Azdimousa, A. (2020).Tectonic evolution of the EasternMoroccan Meseta: From Late Devonianforearc sedimentation to EarlyCarboniferous collision of an Avalonianpromontory.Tectonics,38,e2019TC005976. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2019TC005976] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/64127 10.1029/2019TC005976 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ open access Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Wiley; American Geophysical Union