Exhuming the Top End of North America: Episodic Evolution of the Eurekan Belt and Its Potential Relationships to North Atlantic Plate Tectonics and Arctic Climate Change

Abstract

We present the first low-temperature thermochronology data from northernmost Ellesmere

Thermo-tectonic development of the Wandel Sea Basin, North Greenland

“…This differs significantly from the preferred thermal history synthesis for Wandel Sea Basin presented here, in which major cooling occurred at c. 60 and 35 Ma. However, we noted from the supplementary information presented by Vamvaka et al (2019) that their solutions were constrained to begin cooling from temperatures of 140-160°C between 60 and 50 Ma, which is consistent with the Paleocene cooling episode defined from AFTA in this study.…”

“…Recent apatite fission-track and apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He data from a suite of samples from the Pearya terrane in northern Ellesmere Island (analogous to Area 1 of this study; Fig. 6) yielded fission-track ages of c. 40-50 Ma over an elevation range of c. 1600 m (Vamvaka et al 2019). He-ages in individual grains showed a much wider range, from which the authors selected certain values to derive thermal history constraints.…”

“…It, therefore, seems likely that Paleocene cooling in the two areas has a common, tectonic origin, although Vamvaka et al (2019) considered it to have a non-tectonic origin. On comparing our data with those of Vamvaka, it seems unlikely that their data could independently define three cooling episodes between 55 and 35 Ma.…”

Phanerozoic Record of Northern Ellesmere Island, Canadian High Arctic, Resolved Through 40Ar/39Ar and (U‐Th)/He Geochronology

“…Our thermal history models (Figure 8), as well as thermal history models published by Vamvaka et al. (2019) document pre‐Eurekan (>53 Ma) and Eurekan Stage 1 cooling events that are counter to the Piepjohn et al. (2016) model for the progression of Eurekan deformation in northern Ellesmere Island, which associates the majority of Eurekan tectonism across Ellesmere Island, including NW‐SE compression and dextral transform movements, to the Eurekan Stage 2 (47–34 Ma).…”

“…In comparison, temperatures of <∼150°C from the models of the Pearya Succession II diamictite to the north (Figure 7a) correspond to depths of <6 km and support the hypothesis that Wootton Peninsula was a component of the Sverdrup Rim paleo‐high throughout the Mesozoic. The post‐breakup unconformity cooling episode in 19‐004 (Figure 7b) is synchronous with the first stage (c. 130–120 Ma) of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP), including c. 121 Ma intrusions found on Wootton Peninsula and elsewhere across the Canadian Arctic (Estrada & Henjes‐Kunst, 2013; Estrada & Piepjohn, 2019; Estrada et al., 2003; Evenchick et al., 2015), and c. 130 Ma detrital AFT ages within sediments of the Eureka Sound Group (Vamvaka et al., 2019). Consequently, regional uplift can be connected with extension and magmatism associated with the onset of seafloor spreading in the Amerasia Basin to the north (Figure 9; Grantz et al., 2011).…”