East-directed imbrication and oblique-slip faulting in the Humber Arm Allochthon of western Newfoundland: structural and tectonic significance

1985 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 1351-1360 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bosworth

Many of the dominant outcrop-scale structural features in the lower, clastic thrust sheets of the Humber Arm Allochthon were not generated during the westerly emplacement of the allochthonous terranes of western Newfoundland. Two general groups of structures are abundant in the Humber Arm rocks: (1) east-verging folds accompanied by a weakly to moderately developed slaty cleavage and cut by west-dipping thrust faults; and (2) northeast–southwest-striking high-angle faults, with predominantly normal oblique-slip motion and with larger faults down-stepping to the northwest. Evidence of the earlier, west-directed thrusting (refolded and downward-facing folds, folded thrusts, etc.) is uncommon in the Humber Arm area. Slaty cleavage-generation structures, however, appear to overprint the phacoidal fabrics of the mélange zones that exist between and within thrust slices of the allochthon, making the mélange fabrics the most readily identified features associated with the initial east over west imbrication and emplacement of the allochthon.These observations suggest that the original detachment of the rocks of the Humber Arm Supergroup from their basement (early Taconian deformation) occurred with only limited internal deformation. Mélange zones presently define some or all of the early surfaces of movement. The fully assembled and emplaced allochthonous terrane was subsequently reimbricated on a smaller scale through east-directed thrusting, at which time the allochthon was more pervasively deformed (regional slaty cleavage and fold formation). This may represent late Taconian back thrusting or Acadian shortening. The youngest deformation of the Humber Arm region appears to have been a regional extensional event, with a significant northeast–southwest strike-slip component of movement. This may correlate with the development of Carboniferous strike-slip basins in the present Gulf of St. Lawrence and western Newfoundland. Much of the present structural geometry in the Humber Arm region, including the contacts between ophiolitic and clastic thrust sheets, may have originated during these later two deformational sequences, rather than as a consequence of the initial emplacement history.

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-83
Author(s):  
Sinah Kilian ◽  
Hugo Ortner

AbstractWe present the results of a field study in the Karwendel mountains in the western Northern Calcareous Alps, where we analysed the boundary between two major thrust sheets in detail in a key outcrop where nappe tectonics had been recognized already at the beginning of the 20th century. We use the macroscopic structural record of thrust sheet transport in the footwall and hanging wall of this boundary, such as folds, foliation and faults. In the footwall, competent stratigraphic units tend to preserve a full record of deformation while incompetent units get pervasively overprinted and only document the youngest deformation.Transport across the thrust persisted throughout the deformation history of the Northern Calcareous Alps from the late Early Cretaceous to the Miocene. As a consequence of transtensive, S-block down strike-slip tectonics, postdating folding of the major thrust, new out-of-sequence thrusts formed that climbed across the step, and ultimately placed units belonging to the footwall of the initial thrust onto its hanging wall.One of these out-of-sequence thrusts had been used to delimit the uppermost large thrust sheet (Inntal thrust sheet) of the western Northern Calcareous against the next, tectonically deeper, (Lechtal) thrust sheet. Based on the structural geometry of the folded thrust and the age of the youngest sediments below the thrust, we redefine the thrust sheets, and name the combined former Inntal- and part of the Lechtal thrust sheet as the new Karwendel thrust sheet and the former Allgäu- and part of the Lechtal thrust sheet as the new Tannheim thrust sheet.


2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 297 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. PAPANIKOLAOU ◽  
C. METAXAS ◽  
G. CHRONIS

Detailed single-channel seismic reflection survey has been carried out in the Lakonikos Gulf, Southern Péloponnèse, aiming to a better understanding of the neotectonic structure of the Lakonikos Basin. Our survey showed that, contrary to the model of a simple N-S asymmetric graben previously considered, a tectonic horst occurs within the tectonic graben of Lakonikos. A subsidence of more than 1000m is produced by the N-S marginal faults, whereas, the N-S faults creating the central horst structure within the Lakonikos graben are high-angle reverse faults, which have uplifted the sea bottom together with the Pleistocene and Holocene sediments by about 100m. Several E-W vertical transcurrent faults, with strike-slip motion deform the N-S structures. The central tectonic horst structure is very recent as the observed deformation of the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene sediments indicated and a transtensional geodynamic regime is suggested.


1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Forsyth ◽  
B. Milkereit ◽  
A. Davidson ◽  
S. Hanmer ◽  
D. R. Hutchinson ◽  
...  

New seismic data from marine air-gun and Vibroseis profiles in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie provide images of subhorizontal Phanerozoic sediments underlain by a remarkable series of easterly dipping reflections that extends from the crystalline basement to the lower crust. These reflections are interpreted as structural features of crustal-scale subdivisions within the Grenville Orogen. Broadly deformed, imbricated, and overlapping thrust sheets within the western Central Metasedimentary Belt are succeeded to the west by a complex zone of easterly dipping, apparent thrust faults that are interpreted as a southwest subsurface extension of the boundary zone between the Central Metasedimentary Belt and the Central Gneiss Belt. The interpreted Central Metasedimentary Belt boundary zone has a characteristic magnetic anomaly that provides a link from the adjacent ends of lakes Ontario and Erie to structures exposed 150 km to the north. Less reflective, west-dipping events are interpreted as structures within the eastern Central Gneiss Belt. The seismic interpretation augments current tectonic models that suggest the exposed ductile structures formed at depth as a result of crustal shortening along northwest-verging thrust faults. Relatively shallow reflections across the boundary region suggest local, Late Proterozoic extensional troughs containing post-Grenville sediments, preserved possibly as a result of pre-Paleozoic reactivation of basement structures.


2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1379-1398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang Zhu ◽  
Yongsheng Wang ◽  
Guosheng Liu ◽  
Manlan Niu ◽  
Chenglong Xie ◽  
...  

1986 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Law ◽  
M. Casey ◽  
R. J. Knipe

ABSTRACTUsing a combination of optical microscopy and X-ray texture goniometry, an integrated microstructural and crystallographic fabric study has been made of quartz mylonites from thrust sheets located beneath, but immediately adjacent to, the Moine thrust in the Assynt and Eriboll regions of NW Scotland. A correlation is established between shape fabric symmetry and pattern of crystallographic preferred orientation, a particularly clear relationship being observed between shape fabric variation and quartza-axis fabrics.Coaxial strain paths dominate the internal parts of the thrust sheets and are indicated by quartzc- anda-axis fabrics which are symmetrical with respect to foliation and lineation. Non-coaxial strain paths are indicated within the more intensely deformed quartzites located near the boundaries of the sheets by asymmetricalc- anda-axis fabrics. These kinematic interpretations are supported by microstructural studies. At the Stack of Glencoul in the northern part of the Assynt region, the transition zone between these kinematic (strain path) domains is located at approximately 20 cm beneath the Moine thrust and is marked by a progression from symmetrical cross-girdlec-axis fabrics (30cm beneath the thrust), through asymmetrical cross-girdlec-axis fabrics to asymmetrical single girdlec-axis fabrics (0·5 cm beneath the thrust).Tectonic models (incorporating processes such as extensional flow, gravity spreading and tectonic loading) which may account for the presence of strain path domains within the thrust sheets are considered, and their compatibility with local thrust sheet geometries assessed.


1989 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 1764-1777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Malo ◽  
Jacques Béland

At the southern margin of the Cambro-Ordovician Humber Zone in the Quebec Appalachians, on Gaspé Peninsula, three structural units of Middle Ordovician to Middle Devonian cover rocks of the Gaspé Belt are in large part bounded by long, straight longitudinal faults. In one of these units, the Aroostook–Percé anticlinorium, several structural features, which can be ascribed to Acadian deformation, are controlled by three subparallel, dextral, strike-slip longitudinal faults: Grande Rivière, Grand Pabos, and Rivière Garin. These faults follow bands of intense deformation, contrasting with the mildly to moderately deformed intervals that separate them.Most of the structural features observed – rotated oblique folds and cleavage, subsidiary Riedel and tension faults, and offsets of markers – can be integrated in a model of strike-slip tectonics that operated in ductile–brittle conditions. A late increment of deformation in the form of conjugate cleavages and minor faults is restricted to the bands of high strain. An anticlockwise transection of the synfolding cleavage in relation to the oblique hinges may be a feature of the rotational deformation.The combined dextral strike slip that can be measured within the three major longitudinal fault zones amounts to 138 km, to which can be added 17 km of ductile movement in the intervals, for a total of 155 km.


1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 788-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Rhéaume ◽  
K. Schrijver

The Bic fault is exposed along the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, 21 km southwest of Rimouski, for 210 m at Cap à l'Orignal and for 100 m at Cap Enragé. The fault brings in contact two major thrust sheets, the Des Seigneuries and the Des Iles, Cambrian lithologies of the former overlying Ordovician rocks of the latter. In the Taconic Orogen, such contacts are normally thrust faults, but the Bic fault is a dextral strike-slip fault, striking east–west and dipping southward. A study of a narrow zone straddling the fault and an adjacent part of the Des Seigneuries thrust sheet has led to the recognition of four successive stages of deformation, all compatible with a northeast–southwest-trending strain ellipsoid. The two first stages are most important: stage 1 brought about regional folding and faulting, whereas stage 2 was characterized by the development of various structural elements (C–S fabrics, stretching lineation, Riedel shears, and kink bands) exclusive to the fault zone. We infer that (i) in the study area, the Bic fault constituted a lateral ramp along which the Des Seigneuries thrust sheet slid horizontally westward; and (ii) emplacement of Ba–Pb–Zn deposits took place slightly after this movement, probably during regional uplift of the orogen in Late Ordovician to Early Silurian time. The latter hypothesis tends to be corroborated by model lead ages of galena in two deposits.


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