T112 Structure and Tectonics of Mesoproterozoic Basins

Monday, 26 September 2016
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 203

GRENVILLE FORELAND BASIN LINKS SIBERIA-WEST LAURENTIA PALEOCONTINENTAL CONNECTION

Paper number: T112-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:50 AM – 9:05 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Siberia-west Laurentia reconstruction of Rodinia places Grenville foreland basin structures and sedimentary rocks near the SW corner of Laurentia against those near the SE corner of the Siberian craton, providing a strong Mesoproterozoic paleocontinental link between the cratons. Grenville structures are well exposed and documented in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, where five NE-trending, SE-side-up reverse faults with overlying NW-facing monoclines deform the Unkar Group, a clastic wedge of the Grenville foreland basin. The Unkar Group structures involve ~ 1 Ga mafic sills and flows. In the reconstruction, the Unkar Group structures parallel similar-scale reverse faults in the Sette-Daban basin of SE Siberia that similarly pass upward into monoclines. The Sette-Daban structures deform the Mayamkan Formation, a red-bed Grenvillian clastic wedge that was derived from outboard of the Siberian craton and that contains detrital zircons with a high similarity index to those of the Grenville clastic wedge of SW Laurentia. Detrital zircon age frequency distributions from Siberian rocks show a sudden and significant pulse of Grenville-age zircons as the Grenville foreland basin reached the region. Sette-Daban structures post-date ~ 1 Ga mafic sills and are overlain with angular unconformity by the Vendian (Ediacarian) Yudoma Group, which was deposited during Rodinia rifting when Grenville-age zircons were no longer able to cross the axis of the rift basin. The reconstruction presents a ~500-km wide transect of the Grenville foreland basin that evolved structurally and sedimentologically through the Grenville Orogeny and the rifting of Rodinia.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7

doi: 10.1130/abs/2016AM-281907

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