The Blind Creek Limestone, Keremeos, British Columbia: Structure and Regional Tectonic Significance

A large block of Upper Paleozoic limestone at Blind Creek near Keremeos, B.C. was emplaced by dry gravity sliding, probably associated with uplift related to nearby Eocene volcanism. The block is a nearly flat tabular unit, exposed over an area of 650 m by 1300 m, and is separated from underlying chaotic breccias derived from adjacent Paleozoic rocks and from Eocene volcanic flow rocks by a sole fault. The block comprises two lithologically and tectonically distinct units, a lower imbricated unit consisting of several slices repeating the same sequence of strata, separated from an upper unit of massive limestone by a low-angle fault. Within the imbricated unit, early faults emanate from lenticular masses of breccia along the sole, become increasingly steeper upward, and are truncated above by the upper low angle fault. Associated minor folds and fractures have a clockwise sense of rotation. Later fractures and associated minor folds have the opposite dip and sense of rotation. These two subsets comprise a conjugate set whose inferred compressive stress direction coincides with the present overall dip direction of the entire mass.The northwesterly adjacent autochthonous Olalla limestone, or a similar body now buried by younger units, is a likely source for the Blind Creek allochthon.Absence of any structures within the limestone indicative of ductile deformation contrasts markedly with those of the highly deformed rocks of the Old Tom and Shoemaker Formations, the Kobau Group, and the nearby gneisses of the western Shuswap Complex.