The continuum between Cadomian orogenesis and opening of the Rheic Ocean: Constraints from LA-ICP-MS U-Pb zircon dating and analysis of plate-tectonic setting (Saxo-Thuringian zone, northeastern Bohemian Massif, Germany)

Sediment provenances and magmatic events of Late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran) and Cambro-Ordovician rock complexes from the Saxo-Thuringian zone are constrained by new laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) U-Pb dating of detrital zircons from five sandstones and magmatic zircons from an ignimbrite and one tuffite. These geochronological results in combination with the analysis of the plate-tectonic setting constrained from field observations, sedimentological and geochemical data, and trends of the basin development are used to reconstruct Cadomian orogenic processes during the Late Neoproterozoic and the earliest Cambrian. A continuum between Cadomian orogenesis and the opening of the Rheic Ocean in the Cambro-Ordovician is supported by the data set.