Carboniferous and Permian History of the Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Islands

The Innuitian Tectonic Province contains the record of a Phanerozoic mobile belt in northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Two fundamentally different phases in its development were separated by the Devonian–Carboniferous Ellesmerian Orogeny. The first contribution focuses on the early Paleozoic history of a key area, the second summarizes the Carboniferous to Cenozoic history of most of the Canadian part of the province.(1) The early Paleozoic architecture of the mobile belt is apparent only in Ellesmere Island, where exposures extend from the Canadian Shield through Arctic Platform and Franklinian basin into the Pearya orogenic welt. The Franklinian basin comprised the deep but ensulic Hazen Trough and two unstable shelves bordering it on the northwest and southeast. The northwestern shelf was a site of felsic to intermediate volcanism, mainly in the Ordovician Period. Pearya, a site of granitic plutonism in the Devonian Period, supplied much of the clastic basin fill. Its core consisted of a metamorphic complex, about 1.0 Ga old, exposed in basement uplifts in nor thernmost Ellesmere Island. Both basin and welt essentially formed part of the North American Plate, although rifting, evident from mafic and ultramafic intrusions, probably occurred in Early Devonian (or latest Silurian) time. The history of this part of the province is tentatively interpreted as response to the opening and closure of an ocean, connected with lapetus, that separated northern Ellesmere Island and Greenland from the sialic crust of the present Lomonosov Ridge and Barents Shelf. The Lomonosov Ridge still seems to be attached to the shelf off northeasternmost Ellesmere Island.(2) Deep subsidence and filling of Sverdrup Basin dominated the Innuitian region from Early Carboniferous through Late Cretaceous time. Large halokinetic diapirs and mafic dikes and sills intruded axial parts of the basin succession through Mesozoic time. Steep faults along the northwestern margin of the basin are Middle Cretaceous and older. Part of the northwestern rim of Sverdrup Basin sagged in latest Cretaceous time, becomingpart of the Arctic continental terrace. In the Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary a system of large grabens developed through the southern part of the Innuitian region, linking Canada Basin with Baffin Bay; about the same time, uplift formed some large arches in the northeastern part of the region. Middle Eocene and older rocks were laterally compressed by a phase of pre-Miocene folding and faulting. Some uplift took place in Oligocene or Miocene time on Axel Heiberg Island. The distribution of recent earth quakes does not indicate the presence of modern active plate margins.

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Relation between salt diapirism and the tectonic history of the Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences ◽

10.1139/e92-213 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 29 (12) ◽

pp. 2695-2705 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Randell A. Stephenson ◽

Jean T. van Berkel ◽

Sierd A. P. L. Cloetingh

Keyword(s):

Driving Forces ◽

Driving Mechanisms ◽

Tectonic History ◽

Basin Subsidence ◽

Erosion Level ◽

Sverdrup Basin ◽

History Of ◽

Tectonic Settings ◽

Tectonic Forces ◽

Stratigraphic Thickness

The Sverdrup Basin is a pericratonic sedimentary trough in northern Canada containing up to 13 km of Carboniferous to Tertiary strata. The basin formed by late Paleozoic continental rifting and was subsequently affected by a series of alternating tectonic settings. Evaporite diapirs are well exposed at the present erosion level and occur mainly along the basin axis. The diapiric source layer consists of about 400 m of anhydrite underlain by salt of unknown stratigraphic thickness, deposited during the initial Permo-Carboniferous synrift phase of basin subsidence. Large salt–anhydrite diapirs rose into the sedimentary overburden when the overburden had reached a thickness of several kilometres. They grew during a relatively long period of modest horizontal compression from the Permo-Triassic to Early Cretaceous. Much smaller, tabular anhydrite diapirs were rapidly emplaced during periods of high horizontal compression, in the middle Cretaceous, when large flexural stresses were induced by sedimentary loading, and during the early Tertiary when high intraplate compression resulted from far-field tectonic forces during the Eurekan orogeny.The diapiric behaviour of dense anhydrite implies that buoyancy alone was incapable of driving the diapirism in the Sverdrup Basin. The importance of other driving forces, such as differential loading, basement or overburden faulting, extension, and thermal convection, is thought to be secondary. This suggests a correlation between diapirism and periods of significant horizontal compression, implying that plate-tectonic forces and flexural loading are important driving mechanisms of evaporite diapirism in the Sverdrup Basin.

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U–Pb geochronology of bentonites from the Upper Cretaceous Kanguk Formation, Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada: constraints on sedimentation rates, biostratigraphic correlations and the late magmatic history of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province

Geological Magazine ◽

10.1017/s0016756816000376 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 154 (4) ◽

pp. 757-776 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

WILLIAM J. DAVIS ◽

CLAUDIA J. SCHRÖDER-ADAMS ◽

JENNIFER M. GALLOWAY ◽

JENS O. HERRLE ◽

ADAM T. PUGH

Keyword(s):

Upper Cretaceous ◽

High Arctic ◽

Large Igneous Province ◽

Lower Latitude ◽

Sedimentation Rates ◽

Oceanic Anoxic Event ◽

Igneous Province ◽

Sverdrup Basin ◽

History Of ◽

Magmatic History

AbstractU–Pb ages of zircon from bentonites within the upper Cretaceous Bastion Ridge and Kanguk formations, Sverdrup Basin, provide constraints on sedimentation rates, biostratigraphic correlations, timing of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2) in the High Arctic, and the late magmatic history of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP). A late Cenomanian to early Turonian age for the base of the Kanguk Formation is confirmed that supports correlations of the global OAE2 in the High Arctic. Sedimentation rates varied from 19 m Ma−1between 93 and 91 Ma to 26 m Ma−1between 91 and 83 Ma at Axel Heiberg Island. At Ellef Ringnes Island, the lower Kanguk Formation records high rates of ~70 m Ma−1between 94 and 93 Ma, which decrease to rates comparable to those of the upper Axel Heiberg section. Differences in sedimentation rates may reflect differences in setting prior to the major transgression in the latest Cenomanian to early Turonian. The timing of Arctic occurrences of theScaphites nigricollensisandScaphites depressusammonite zones is shown to be broadly comparable to that of lower-latitude occurrences within the Western Interior Seaway. An eruption frequency of 0.5–2.5 Ma characterizes the late alkaline phase of HALIP magmatism. Volcanic bed thicknesses of 10–50 cm suggest ash transport distances of less than 1000 km. Long-lived volcanic centres, in the area of the Alpha Ridge, northern Ellesmere Island or northern Greenland, were the likely source of volcanic ash over a period of 10–15 Ma.

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