Journal article
The Pearya Shear Zone in the Canadian High Arctic: kinematics and significance
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften, Vol.163(3), pp.233-249
2012
DOI: 10.1127/1860-1804/2012/0163-0233
Abstract
The Pearya Shear Zone near the Arctic coast of northern Ellesmere Island represents a major, large-scale structural element that traverses from southwest to northeast across the western part of the exotic Pearya Terrane. The shear zone consists of thick, subvertical mylonites developed in orthogneisses, metasedimentary rocks and granitoids. The mylonites are mostly characterised by a sinistral sense of shear. The ductile Pearya Shear Zone is interpreted to continue eastwards to the northernmost cape of the North American continent, Cape Columbia, where an isolated occurrence of orthogneisses and metasedimentary rocks was also affected by sinistral ductile shearing. The displacement along the Pearya Shear Zone can be related to the Caledonian Orogeny (M'Clintock Orogeny in the Pearya Terrane). As our working hypothesis, we assume an initial position of the Pearya Terrane near Svalbard. There, comparable large-scale sinistral shear zones transferred crustal slices during (?)Ordovician and later times but before the Ellesmerian Orogeny. We suggest that the Pearya Shear Zone has been passively carried during the Ellesmerian approach of the Pearya Terrane towards, and the final accretion to, the passive continental margin of Laurentia (Franklinian Basin).
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Pearya Shear Zone in the Canadian High Arctic: kinematics and significance
- Creators
- Werner von GosenKarsten PiepjohnWilliam C. McClellandAndreas Läufer
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften, Vol.163(3), pp.233-249
- DOI
- 10.1127/1860-1804/2012/0163-0233
- ISSN
- 1860-1804
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2012
- Academic Unit
- Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984230124702771
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