Early Devonian sinistral strike-slip in the Caledonian basement of Oscar II Land advocates for escape tectonics as a major mechanism for Svalbard terranes assembly

Author(s):  
Grzegorz Ziemniak ◽  
Jarosław Majka ◽  
Maciej Manecki ◽  
Katarzyna Walczak ◽  
Pauline Jeanneret ◽  
...  

<p>The Svalbard’s Southwestern Basement Province in contrary to the Northwestern and Eastern Basement Provinces is commonly correlated with the Pearya Terrane or Timanides and bears a complicated internal structure. Here, we present new data from Oscar II Land supporting the model of Svalbard’s Basement being divided into the Laurentia and Barentsia plates in the late-Caledonian period.</p><p>In Oscar II Land the enigmatic Müllerneset Formation is tectonically juxtaposed against the remaining greenschist facies metamorphosed basement. It consists of Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic metapelites and metapsammites that experienced a polymetamorphic history. The progressive amphibolite facies event M1 of unknown age reached the pressure-temperatures conditions of 5-7 kbar at 500-560 °C. The subsequent greenschist facies overprint (M2) is associated with mylonitization strongly pronounced across the whole Müllerneset Formation. Mylonitic foliation S2 dips steeply to the SW and it is associated with a stretching lineation dipping moderately-to-shallowly to the SE. In the western part of the unit, monazite is growing within the S2 foliation and related shear bands mainly replacing allanite. Th-U-total Pb dating of homogenous monazite population yielded a weighted average age of 410 ± 7 Ma with MSWD = 0.26 and p = 0.997. In the western part, where mylonitic foliation is less prevalent, monazite growths within M1 porphyroblasts and within the S2 foliation. Th-U-total Pb dating revealed an array of ages between 480 – 280 Ma with no correlation of chemical or structural features allowing divisions into subgroups.</p><p>Dating results indicating an early Caledonian signal should be attributed to the progressive M1 event. Uniform monazite age of 410 ± 7 Ma in the western part represents the timing of the M2 greenschist facies overprint. Younger ages obtained in the eastern part suggest fluid related disturbance of Th-U-Pb system during late Caledonian, Ellesmerian and Eurekan events. The timing of monazite growth during the M2 event is identical with the 410 ± 2 Ma <sup>40</sup>Ar/<sup>39</sup>Ar cooling age reported by Dallmeyer (1989). Geochronological evidence combined with structural observations suggests that the Müllerneset Formation in the Early Devonian was tectonically exhumed on the NW-SE trending left-lateral strike- to oblique-slip shear zone. Similarly oriented tectonic zones within the Southwestern Basement Province, in the Berzeliuseggene unit and the Vimsodden-Kosibapasset Shear Zone are also of similar age. This set of anastomosing shear zones is roughly parallel to the proposed orientation of the suture between Barentsia and Laurentia (Gudlaugsson et al. 1998). The documented Early Devonian sinistral displacement may mark the western boundary of the Barentsia microplate laterally extruded during the final Caledonian collision in a style similar to present day Anatolian Plate escape.</p><p>This work is funded by NCN research project no. 2015/17/B/ST10/03114, AGH statutory funds 16.16.140.315 and RCN Arctic Field Grant no. 282546.</p><p>Dallmeyer, R. D. (1989). Partial thermal resetting of<sup> 40</sup>Ar/<sup>39</sup>Ar mineral ages in western Spitsbergen, Svalbard: possible evidence for Tertiary metamorphism. Geological Magazine, 126(5), 587-593.</p><p>Gudlaugsson, S. T., Faleide, J. I., Johansen, S. E., & Breivik, A. J. (1998). Late Palaeozoic structural development of the south-western Barents Sea. Marine and Petroleum Geology, 15(1), 73-102.</p>

2021 ◽  
pp. jgs2021-038
Author(s):  
Yanlong Dong ◽  
Shuyun Cao ◽  
Franz Neubauer ◽  
Haobo Wang ◽  
Wenyuan Li ◽  
...  

Lateral extrusion of blocks is a well-known geological process during continent–continent collision, which always expresses by either brittle strike-slip faults or ductile shear zones. However, vertical motion along such fault systems remains poorly constrained. The Gaoligong shear zone (GLG-SZ) formed the western boundary of the Indochina block during the India–Eurasia collision, resulting in the exhumation of deep crustal rocks, including a large volume of syntectonic granites. Combined zircon U-Pb dating and 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology revealed that both the unfoliated and foliated granitic intrusions were emplaced during the Early Cretaceous (112–125 Ma), post-magmatic melting occurred from the Early Oligocene (ca. 35 Ma), and subsequent cooling during the Middle Miocene (ca. 13 Ma). The average emplacement depth of Early Cretaceous samples revealed that at least 15 km of hangingwall of the GLG-SZ must have been removed by vertical motion during shearing. Syn-shearing exhumation underlines the role of the lateral motion of the shear zone initiation by magma-assisted rheological weakening and exhumation at high ambient temperatures within the shear zone. A new model links magmatic channel flow underneath the Tibetan Plateau with magma intrusions and the high geothermal gradients along the shear belts, such as the GLG-SZ.Supplementary material:https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5598365


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Ballèvre ◽  
Paola Manzotti

<p>A popular model for the exhumation of HP-UHP rocks is the ‘extruding wedge’ model, where a crustal slice is bounded at its base by a ‘thrust shear-sense’ fault and to the top by a ‘normal shear-sense’ fault. In the Western Alps, the late Eocene Combin Shear Zone (CSZ) allowed extrusion of a wedge made by the Briançonnais-Piemonte-Liguria (‘Penninic’) stack.</p><p>Geological mapping has established the geometry and continuity of the CSZ from the frontal part of the Dent Blanche Tectonic System to the western boundary of the Sesia Zone. The CSZ has been cut during the Miocene by the brittle Aosta-Ranzola Fault, with an estimated downthrow of the northern block of c. 2.5 km with respect to the southern block. Consequently, the sections observed north (Monte Rosa) and South (Gran Paradiso) of the Aosta Fault display different structural levels in the Alpine nappe stack. The CSZ has been folded (Vanzone phase) during the final part of its history (i.e. when displacement along the CSZ was no more taking place), due to the indentation of the Adriatic mantle. This offers us the unique opportunity to study the change in deformation mechanisms along the shear zone (for a distance parallel to its displacement of about 50 km).</p><p>Salient characteristics of the CSZ are the following. (i) The thickness of the ductile shear zone increases from NW (frontal part of the Dent Blanche) to SE (frontal part of the Sesia Zone), from a few hundred metres to several kilometres. The type of lithologies pervasively reworked by the ductile shear changes along strike (dominantly calcschists from the topmost oceanic units in the Combin Zone, possibly up to the whole of the ‘Gneiss Minuti’ in the frontal Sesia Zone). (ii) The main ductile deformation along the CSZ was taking place at greenschist-facies conditions, overprinting eclogite-facies to greenschist-facies deformations of Cretaceous to Middle Eocene age. The CSZ is cutting and reworking eclogite-facies structures developed in its hangingwall (Sesia) as well as in its footwall (Zermatt). (iii) Ductile displacement along the CSZ is associated with the development in its footwall of south-east-verging, kilometre-scale, folds (Mischabel phase). The sedimentary sequences of the Pancherot-Cime Bianche-Bettaforca Unit may be used to estimate the minimum amount of ‘normal shear sense’ displacement of the order of 15-20 km.</p><p>A kinematic model integrating slab roll-back, ‘thrust shear-sense’ at the base and ‘normal shear-sense’ displacement on top of the Eocene eclogite-facies stack will be presented.</p>


2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 1245-1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Culshaw ◽  
T Brown ◽  
P H Reynolds ◽  
J WF Ketchum

The polyphase Kanairiktok shear zone (KNSZ) separates gneissic rocks of the Archean Nain craton from their reworked equivalents in the Paleoproterozoic Kaipokok domain of the Makkovik Province. In its early stages, the KNSZ bounded the Kaipokok domain as it was thermally softened by 1895-1870 Ma Andean-type magmatism, accompanied by dextral oblique convergence and resultant penetrative deformation. The amphibolite-facies tectonite that developed in this stage was widely overprinted by greenschist-facies mylonite. Laserprobe and spectral 40Ar/39Ar ages of recrystallized and porphyroclastic muscovite, from the greenschist-facies mylonite and from muscovite in a syntectonic quartz vein, bracket the age of deformation between 1740 and 1710 Ma with the best estimate at 1715 Ma. These ages are similar to those of A-type granites within the Makkovik Province and amphibole cooling ages from the province interior. Together with the petrological similarity of the greenschist-facies mylonite to localized low-grade shear zones elsewhere in the Makkovik Province, they are suggestive of a widespread, lithosphere-scale event. The 40Ar/39Ar data do not provide good constraints on the early activity of the KNSZ. However, preservation of relationships between granitoid sheets correlated with the 1895-1870 Ma Island Harbour Bay plutonic suite and early fabrics imply that the granites were emplaced syntectonically in the KNSZ. Thus, the KNSZ was a major, long-lived structure in the Makkovik Province that decoupled events in the reactivated Nain craton from an inert cratonic region.


Author(s):  
Larisa A. Pautova ◽  
Vladimir A. Silkin ◽  
Marina D. Kravchishina ◽  
Valeriy G. Yakubenko ◽  
Anna L. Chultsova

The structure of the summer planktonic communities of the Northern part of the Barents sea in the first half of August 2017 were studied. In the sea-ice melting area, the average phytoplankton biomass producing upper 50-meter layer of water reached values levels of eutrophic waters (up to 2.1 g/m3). Phytoplankton was presented by diatoms of the genera Thalassiosira and Eucampia. Maximum biomass recorded at depths of 22–52 m, the absolute maximum biomass community (5,0 g/m3) marked on the horizon of 45 m (station 5558), located at the outlet of the deep trench Franz Victoria near the West coast of the archipelago Franz Josef Land. In ice-free waters, phytoplankton abundance was low, and the weighted average biomass (8.0 mg/m3 – 123.1 mg/m3) corresponded to oligotrophic waters and lower mesotrophic waters. In the upper layers of the water population abundance was dominated by small flagellates and picoplankton from, biomass – Arctic dinoflagellates (Gymnodinium spp.) and cold Atlantic complexes (Gyrodinium lachryma, Alexandrium tamarense, Dinophysis norvegica). The proportion of Atlantic species in phytoplankton reached 75%. The representatives of warm-water Atlantic complex (Emiliania huxleyi, Rhizosolenia hebetata f. semispina, Ceratium horridum) were recorded up to 80º N, as indicators of the penetration of warm Atlantic waters into the Arctic basin. The presence of oceanic Atlantic species as warm-water and cold systems in the high Arctic indicates the strengthening of processes of “atlantificacion” in the region.


2002 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 749-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Culshaw ◽  
Peter Reynolds ◽  
Gavin Sinclair ◽  
Sandra Barr

We report amphibole and mica 40Ar/39Ar ages from the Makkovik Province. Amphibole ages from metamorphic rocks decrease towards the interior of the province, indicating a first-order pattern of monotonic cooling with progressive migration of the province into a more distal back-arc location. The amphibole data, in combination with muscovite ages, reveal a second-order pattern consisting of four stages corresponding to changing spatial and temporal configurations of plutonism and deformation. (1) The western Kaipokok domain cooled through muscovite closure by 1810 Ma, long after the cessation of arc magmatism. (2) The Kaipokok Bay shear zone, bounding the Kaipokok and Aillik domains, cooled through amphibole closure during 1805–1780 Ma, synchronous with emplacement of syn-tectonic granitoid plutons. (3) Between 1740 and 1700 Ma, greenschist-facies shearing occurred along the boundary between the Kaipokok domain and Nain Province synchronous with A-type plutonism and localized shearing in the western Kaipokok domain, cooling to muscovite closure temperatures in the Kaipokok Bay shear zone, and A-type plutonism and amphibole closure or resetting in the Aillik domain. (4) In the period 1650–1640 Ma, muscovite ages, an amphibole age from a shear zone, and resetting of plutonic amphibole indicate a thermal effect coinciding in part with Labradorian plutonism in the Aillik domain. Amphibole ages from dioritic sheets in the juvenile Aillik domain suggest emplacement between 1715 and 1685 Ma. Amphibole ages constrain crystallization of small mafic plutons in the Kaipokok domain (reworked Archean foreland) to be no younger than 1670–1660 Ma. These ages are the oldest yet obtained for Labradorian plutonism in the Makkovik Province.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quanlin Hou ◽  
Hongyuan Zhang ◽  
Qing Liu ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Yudong Wu

A previous study of the Dabie area has been supposed that a strong extensional event happened between the Yangtze and North China blocks. The entire extensional system is divided into the Northern Dabie metamorphic complex belt and the south extensional tectonic System according to geological and geochemical characteristics in our study. The Xiaotian-Mozitan shear zone in the north boundary of the north system is a thrust detachment, showing upper block sliding to the NNE, with a displacement of more than 56 km. However, in the south system, the shearing direction along the Shuihou-Wuhe and Taihu-Mamiao shear zones is tending towards SSE, whereas that along the Susong-Qingshuihe shear zone tending towards SW, with a displacement of about 12 km. Flinn index results of both the north and south extensional systems indicate that there is a shear mechanism transition from pure to simple, implying that the extensional event in the south tectonic system could be related to a magma intrusion in the Northern Dabie metamorphic complex belt. Two 40Ar-39Ar ages of mylonite rocks in the above mentioned shear zones yielded, separately, ~190 Ma and ~124 Ma, referring to a cooling age of ultrahigh-pressure rocks and an extensional era later.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pritam Ghosh ◽  
Kathakali Bhattacharyya

<p>We examine how the deformation profile and kinematic evolutionary paths of two major shear zones with prolonged deformation history and large translations differ with varying structural positions along its transport direction in an orogenic wedge. We conduct this analysis on multiple exposures of the internal thrusts from the Sikkim Himalayan fold thrust belt, the Pelling-Munsiari thrust (PT), the roof thrust of the Lesser Himalayan duplex (LHD), and the overlying Main Central thrust (MCT). These two thrusts are regionally folded due to growth of the LHD and are exposed at different structural positions. The hinterlandmost exposures of the MCT and PT zones lie in the trailing parts of the duplex, while the foreland-most exposures of the same studied shear zones lie in the leading part of the duplex, and thus have recorded a greater connectivity with the duplex. The thicknesses of the shear zones progressively decrease toward the leading edge indicating variation in deformation conditions. Thickness-displacement plot reveals strain-softening from all the five studied MCT and the PT mylonite zones. However, the strain-softening mechanisms varied along its transport direction with the hinterland exposures recording dominantly dislocation-creep, while dissolution-creep and reaction-softening are dominant in the forelandmost exposures. Based on overburden estimation, the loss of overburden on the MCT and the PT zones is more in the leading edge (~26km and ~15km, respectively) than in the trailing edge (~10km and ~17km, respectively), during progressive deformation. Based on recalibrated recrystallized quartz grain thermometer (Law, 2014), the estimated deformation temperatures in the trailing edge are higher (~450-650°C) than in the leading edge (350-550°C) of the shear zones. This variation in the deformation conditions is also reflected in the shallow-crustal deformation structures with higher fracture intensity and lower spacing in the leading edge exposures of the shear zones as compared to the trailing edge exposures.</p><p>The proportion of mylonitic domains and micaceous minerals within the exposed shear zones increase and grain-size of the constituent minerals decreases progressively along the transport direction. This is also consistent with progressive increase in mean R<sub>s</sub>-values toward leading edge exposures of the same shear zones. Additionally, the α-value (stretch ratio) gradually increases toward the foreland-most exposures along with increasing angular shear strain. Vorticity estimates from multiple incremental strain markers indicate that the MCT and PT zones generally record a decelerating strain path. Therefore, the results from this study are counterintuitive to the general observation of a direct relationship between higher Rs-value and higher pure-shear component. We explain this observation in the context of the larger kinematics of the orogen, where the leading edge exposures have passed through the duplex structure, recording the greatest connectivity and most complete deformation history, resulting in the weakest shear zone that is also reflected in the deformation profiles and strain attributes. This study demonstrates that the same shear zone records varying deformation profile, strain and kinematic evolutionary paths due to varying deformation conditions and varying connectivity to the underlying footwall structures during progressive deformation of an orogenic wedge.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 722 ◽  
pp. 595-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cihat Alçiçek ◽  
Lars W. van den Hoek Ostende ◽  
Gerçek Saraç ◽  
Alexey S. Tesakov ◽  
Alison M. Murray ◽  
...  

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