Comparison of tectonic styles in the Mexican and Canadian Rocky Mountain Fold-Thrust Belt

Abstract

Despite the fact that most fold–thrust belts around the world share many features, successfully explained by the critical wedge model, the details of their geometric evolution and tectonic style development are poorly understood. In the classic section of the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains the dominant tectonic style consists of imbricate thrust sheets with relatively little internal deformation of the individual slices. In the Mexican fold–thrust Belt (Central Mexico), the age of deformation, the overall structural pattern and the total amount of shortening are similar, but the individual thrust sheets exhibit much more internal deformation as manifest by metre-scale buckle folds. One of the differences between these localities is the lateral variation of facies resulting in massive platform limestone separated by thinly-bedded basinal limestone in the Central Mexico section. Strain is concentrated toward the margins between platforms and basins. In Canada, thick platform carbonates form continuous resistant units across the Front Range. Possible reasons for the differences in tectonic style between the two sections include the dominant lithology, distribution of lithologies, taper angle of the tectonic wedges, amount of friction along the basal detachment and the degree of anisotropy of the basin facies rocks.

Kinematic evolution and structural styles of fold-and-thrust belts

“…Although they exhibit a number of common characteristics, no single map or cross-section can provide a universal portrayal of a FAT belt because many parameters exert an important influence on them (see, for instance, Fitz-Diaz et al 2011). These factors include the plate tectonics setting in which they developed, whether only the cover or both the cover and basement rocks are involved in the structures, the role of mechanical stratigraphy, the presence, distribution and thickness of a salt/shale detachment, the occurrence of syn-orogenic erosion and deposition leading to burial, the depth to detachment and the effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere (e.g.…”

Progressive, episodic deformation in the Mexican Fold–Thrust Belt (central Mexico): evidence from isotopic dating of folds and faults

“…We chose a wellexposed section in the MFTB for this study for the following reasons: (1) extensive work on deformation style/kinematics and water-rock interaction has been carried out here in recent years (Suter 1984(Suter , 1987(Suter , 1990CarrilloMartínez 1997;Fitz-Díaz et al 2011a, 2011b, 2012, (2) mesoscopic chevron folds developed in basinal carbonate sequences (limestone interbedded with shale and chert) are pervasive along the section; and (3) deformation along the section occurred at temperatures between 80 and above 250°C (Gray et al 2001;Fitz-Díaz et al 2011a;OrtegaFlores 2011). The last is important because it defines the temperature window at which precipitation and transformation of illite from 1M d (disordered illite lacking some characteristic reflections in XRD patterns) to 2M 1 polytype (well-organized, muscovite-like illite in the XRD pattern) occurs in fold-thrust belts (Merriman and Frey 1999;Merriman and Peacor 1999), with illite being the mineral phase that is key to this geochronological study of fold-thrust belt evolution.…”

Fundamental controls on fluid flow in carbonates: current workflows to emerging technologies

“…Comparative studies of deformation in carbonate reservoirs or outcrop analogues appear to be less common. On a regional scale, Fitz-Diaz et al (2011) examined the influence of carbonate lithologies and their distributions on first-order structural styles and the degree of penetrative deformation within thrust sheets, extending the earlier work by Spratt et al (2004). Following examples such as that of Mannino et al (2010), we perceive further opportunities to integrate numerous studies of carbonate outcrops in central -southern Italy (e.g.…”