Detrital zircon geo-and thermochronology of the Lanaittu Sandstone in Eastern Sardinia, Italy

The data set comprises pairs of laser ablation U-Pb and (U-Th)/He double dating of detrital zircons from two samples (177-1 and 177-2) of middle-upper Campanian turbiditic sandstone deposits. The samples were cored along a geognostic borehole in the Lanaittu valley in eastern Sardinia. We combine zircon U-Pb geochronology with (U-Th)/He thermochronology to determine the time of grain formation and cooling through the upper crust. Together, these data provide a more powerful provenance signal than each of these methods alone. The two samples consist of detrital zircon U-Pb dates that are Permian and older, and show no significant differences between them. The acceptable U-Pb dates range from 223 ± 8 Ma (2σ) to 2490 ± 42 Ma and are much older than the middle-late Campanian depositional age of the dated samples. The detrital zircon U-Pb date distributions are consistent with a provenance from the Sardinia block or from the continental crust of an Alkapeca continental fragment, such as a Calabrian terrane/subterrane, or from both sources. The detrital zircon (U-Th)/He dates are also all older than the depositional age of the sandstones. Their distribution is continuous and rather simple with most dates (78 %) being Paleozoic to Jurassic forming a population centered around 261 ± 5 Ma, while the remaining dates (22%) form a population centered at 100 ± 4 Ma. The detrital zircon (U-Th)/He dates suggest a source area exposing rocks with heterogeneous thermal histories—some having experienced rapid cooling during the Cretaceous, and most others resided in the upper crust since the Paleozoic–early Mesozoic.