scholarly journals Structural evolution of a crustal-scale shear zone through a decreasing temperature regime: The Yukon River shear zone, Yukon-Tanana terrane, Northern Cordillera

Lithosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Parsons ◽  
M.J. Coleman ◽  
J.J. Ryan ◽  
A. Zagorevski ◽  
N.L. Joyce ◽  
...  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 909-955
Author(s):  
E. Fazio ◽  
G. Ortolano ◽  
R. Cirrincione ◽  
A. Pezzino ◽  
R. Visalli

Abstract. Mylonitic rocks involved within a polyphase crustal-scale shear zone, cropping out in the Aspromonte Massif (Calabria, Italy), has been investigated to reveal the meso- and micro-structural evolution (from ductile- to brittle-type deformation) occurred during exhumation trajectory. A relatively small area (about 4 km2) has been selected in the central-eastern part of the massif to constrain the sequence of the structural features from the earliest ones (Hercynian in age), almost totally obliterated by a pervasive mylonitic foliation (plastic regime), up to recent ones, consisting of various sets of veins typical of semibrittle to brittle regime. The former ductile evolution was followed by a compressive thin-skinned thrusting stage developed during the Apennine phase of the Alpine Orogeny, interested by a second brittle stage, consistent with the switching from compressive to extensional tectonics. This last stage accompanied the final exhumation process causing the activation of regional scale normal faults, which partly disarticulated previous mylonitic microstructures. A suite of oriented specimens were collected and analyzed to complete the deformational history already recognized in the field. Quartz c axis orientation patterns confirm the greenschist facies conditions of the former ductile exhumation stage with a dominant top-to-NE sense of shear. Microstructural investigations highlighted the progressive development from plastic- to brittle-type structures, allowing to constrain each step of the multistage exhumation history, and to establish the relative timing of the stress field variation causing thrusting and subsequent normal faulting. Obtained results support a continue compressional exhumation of this sector since the opening of Tyrrhenian basin (10 Ma).


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (9) ◽  
pp. 1063-1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle J. Markley ◽  
Steven R. Dunn ◽  
Michael J. Jercinovic ◽  
William H. Peck ◽  
Michael L. Williams

The Central Metasedimentary Belt boundary zone (CMBbz) is a crustal-scale shear zone that juxtaposes the Central Gneiss Belt and the Central Metasedimentary Belt of the Grenville Province. Geochronological work on the timing of deformation and metamorphism in the CMBbz is ambiguous, and the questions that motivate our study are: how many episodes of shear zone activity did the CMBbz experience, and what is the tectonic significance of each episode? We present electron microprobe data from monazite (the U–Th–Pb chemical method) to directly date deformation and metamorphism recorded in five garnet–biotite gneiss samples collected from three localities of the CMBbz of Ontario (West Guilford, Fishtail Lake, and Killaloe). All three localities yield youngest monazite dates ca. 1045 Ma; most of the monazite domains that yield these dates are high-Y rims. In comparison with this common late Ottawan history, the earlier history of the three CMBbz localities is less clearly shared. The West Guilford samples have monazite grain cores that show older high-Y domains and younger low-Y domains; these cores yield a prograde early Ottawan (1100–1075 Ma) history. The Killaloe samples yield a well-defined prograde, pre- to early Shawinigan history (i.e., 1220–1160 Ma) in addition to some evidence for a second early Ottawan event. In other words, the answers to our research questions are: three events; a Shawinigan event possibly associated with crustal thickening, an Ottawan event possibly associated with another round of crustal thickening, and a late Ottawan event that resists simple interpretation in terms of metamorphic history but that coincides chronologically with crustal thinning at the base of an orogenic lid.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Buehler ◽  
Roger Zurbriggen ◽  
Alfons Berger ◽  
Marco Herwegh ◽  
Daniela Rubatto

<p>Many pre‐Mesozoic basements of the Alpine belt contain kilometre‐scaled folds with steeply inclined axial planes and fold axes. Those structures are referred to as Schlingen folds. They deform polymetamorphic gneisses, often Late‐Ordovician metagranitoids and are cross‐cut themselves by Permian intrusions. However, the structural evolution of such Schlingen is still not completely understood and their geodynamic significance for the Variscan evolution is not clear. To close this gap, this study investigates in detail a well-preserved Schlingen structure in the Gotthard nappe (Central Swiss Alps). This Schlingen fold evolved by a combination of shearing and folding under amphibolite facies conditions. Detailed digital field mapping coupled with petrological and structural investigations reveal local synkinematic migmatisation in the fold hinges parallel to axial planes. U‐Pb dating of zircons separated from associated leucosomes reveal cores that record a detrital country rock age of 450 ± 3 Ma, and rims with a range of dates from 270 to 330 Ma. The main cluster defines an age of 316 ± 4 Ma. We ascribe this Late‐Carboniferous age to peak metamorphic conditions of the late‐Variscan Schlingen phase.</p><p>The pre-Schlingen structures are subdivided into three older deformation events, which are connected to the Cenerian and post-Cenerian deformations. In addition, until now unknown, post Schlingen-, but pre-Alpine transpressional deformation have been detected and described. This superimposed deformation produced locally a low-grade foliation and minor undulation of the Schlingen structures.</p><p>The detail data of the investigated fold structures are linked with already described Schlingen folds in the wider Alpine realm, which all are concentrated in the most southern parts of the Variscides. From a geodynamic point of view and based on the new tectono-metamorphic constraints, we propose Schlingen formation preceded and concurred the crustal-scale transpressional tectonics of the East Variscan Shear Zone. This scenario separates, at least in a structural sense, the Southern Variscides from more northern parts (also Gondwana derived) inside Pangea, where Schlingen folds are absent.</p>


1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 1305-1319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moira T. Smith ◽  
George E. Gehrels

The Lardeau Group is a heterogeneous assemblage of lower Paleozoic eugeoclinal strata present in the Kootenay Arc in southeastern British Columbia. It is in fault contact with lower Paleozoic miogeoclinal strata for all or some of its length along a structure termed the Lardeau shear zone. The Lardeau Group was deformed prior to mid-Mississippian time, as manifested by layer-parallel faults, folds, and evidence for early greenschist-facies metamorphism. Regional constraints indicate probable Devono-Mississippian timing of orogeny, and possible juxtaposition of the Lardeau Group over miogeoclinal strata along the Lardeau shear zone at this time. Further ductile deformation during the Middle Jurassic Columbian orogeny produced large folds with subhorizontal axes, northwest-striking foliation and faults, and orogen-parallel stretching lineations. This deformation was apparently not everywhere synchronous, and may have continued through Late Jurassic time northeast of Trout Lake. This was followed by Cretaceous(?) dextral strike-slip and normal movement on the Lardeau shear zone and other parallel faults. While apparently the locus of several episodes of faulting, the Lardeau shear zone does not record the accretion of far-travelled tectonic fragments, as sedimentological evidence ties the Lardeau Group and other outboard units to the craton.


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian F. Park

The sulphide orebodies at the Stratmat mine in New Brunswick are treated as tectonites, because their primary characteristics have been so modified by deformation, recrystallization, and vein injection that most of their original features have been obscured. Pb–Zn–Cu sulphide orebodies at the Stratmat mine consist of sulphide and sulphide–silicate tectonites, gneisses, schists, phyllites, and slates produced by the mixing of two sulphide precursors and silicate host rocks by polyphase deformation, much of which relates to progressive non-coaxial deformation. Quartz-vein injection during and after this period of deformation, and the intermixing of nonsulphide lithotypes, led to dilution of the initial ore composition. Both the deformation of the orebodies and fluid migration, manifested by vein injection, reflect processes that were operative in a major shear zone. No indisputable primary characteristics of the orebodies are preserved, although a number of tectonic and (or) tectonically modified features mimic depositional features, e.g., quartz mylonites resemble "cherts," festoon veinlets resemble dismembered stockwork veins, sulphide mylonites resemble rock with an original fine-grain size and "extra" fold phases that could be mistaken for soft sediment folds.


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