Late Ordovician (Chatfieldian) catastrophic volcanism and abrupt carbonate platform-interior subsidence: A tectonic link across a Taconian foreland basin (Quebec Embayment) due to inherited crustal weakness

Dix, George R.; Al-Dulami, M.J.

doi:10.1130/b30371.1

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Additionally, some of these same faults also sustained motion at Cambrian-Ordovician boundary time (Jacobi et al, 2006) and Knox unconformity time (e.g., Bradley and Kidd, 1991). To the north in Quebec, Taconic subsidence is proposed to have been guided by reactivated Neoproterozoic/ Iapetan-opening faults, some of which were also reactivated around the time of the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary and during the hiatus associated with the Knox unconformity (Dix and Rodhan, 2006;Salad Hersi and Dix, 2006;Dix and Al-Dulami, 2011;Dix and Jolicoeur, 2011;Gbadeyan and Dix, 2013). Further, faults observed on seismic refl ection data in Quebec sup-port the contention that Iapetan-opening faults were reactivated during Taconic foreland basin subsidence, since the throw on the basal Cambrian nonconformity is greater than the throw on the Ordovician units (e.g., Séjourné et al, 2002).…”

Section: Foreland Basin Subsidence: Implications For Structure and Tementioning

confidence: 99%

Aseismic ridge subduction as a driver for the Ordovician Taconic orogeny and Utica foreland basin in New England and New York State

Jacobi¹,

Mitchell²

2018

Tectonics, Sedimentary Basins, and Provenance: A Celebration of the Career of William R. Dickinson

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Aseismic ridge subduction is common along modern convergent margins. We enumerate six criteria that can be used to recognize aseismic ridge subduction in orogens, including a magmatic gap with uplift followed by bimodal volcanism, which commonly includes explosive, voluminous rhyodacitic volcanism that erupts far from the trench. Features temporally linked with the explosive volcanism include retroarc thrusts and consequent thrust-loaded retroarc foreland basin development. Using these criteria to examine features of the Taconic orogen, together with new stratigraphic and structural data from the Utica basin that constrain the basin subsidence architecture and thrust timing, we propose that at least the older units of the 456-435 Ma Oliverian Plutonic Suite in New England were generated during steepening of the downgoing slab after passage of a subducting aseismic ridge. Weakened crust from delamination and decompression melting promoted westerly directed thrusts (present-day coordinates) that loaded the Taconic retroarc foreland. The resulting Utica basin subsided rapidly and nearly synchronously over an ~150-kmwide region and contains interbedded 453-451 Ma ash layers from the Oliverian Plutonic Suite or coeval plutons to the south. This history of basin subsidence indicates that the major thrust loads that drove development of the Utica basin were emplaced over a similarly brief interval beginning ca. 455 Ma. Thus, the Taconic thrusts, the Utica basin, the volcanic ashes, and the early Oliverian felsic magmatic units could all be related to an aseismic ridge subduction event. Because of the ubiquity of seamount chains, we expect that aseismic ridge subduction affected other segments of the Taconic orogen.

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Section: Foreland Basin Subsidence: Implications For Structure and Tementioning

confidence: 99%

Aseismic ridge subduction as a driver for the Ordovician Taconic orogeny and Utica foreland basin in New England and New York State

Jacobi¹,

Mitchell²

2018

Tectonics, Sedimentary Basins, and Provenance: A Celebration of the Career of William R. Dickinson

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“…In the Ottawa Embayment, an upper Chatfieldian bentonite in the Verulam Formation is correlated across the Laurentian platform from margin to the interior Michigan Basin [30]. The stratigraphic position of this bentonite correlates shallowing in the upper Verulam Formation in the northern Appalachian Basin with abrupt subsidence and backstepping (~50 km) of the Laurentian margin along the Quebec Embayment [30].…”

Section: Stratigraphic Response To Eustasy or Tectonics?mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The stratigraphic position of this bentonite correlates shallowing in the upper Verulam Formation in the northern Appalachian Basin with abrupt subsidence and backstepping (~50 km) of the Laurentian margin along the Quebec Embayment [30]. Above this marker unit, the upper Verulam Formation and the Lindsay Formation thicken from the western Ottawa Embayment seaward into southern Quebec [30] where the latter formation is equivalent to the shaley Tetreauville Formation [36,37].…”

Section: Stratigraphic Response To Eustasy or Tectonics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of Regional and Local Structure in a Late Ordovician (Edenian) Foreland Platform-to-Basin Succession Inboard of the Taconic Orogen, Central Canada

Gbadeyan

Dix

2013

Geosciences

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The Upper Ordovician (Edenian) Lindsay Formation of the Ottawa Embayment represents the final stage of carbonate platform development in the Taconic foreland periphery inboard of the northern Appalachian orogen. The succession overlies a narrow (~60 km) axis of a Neoproterozoic Laurentian rift extending across the Grenville orogen. The Lindsay Formation consists of a lower heavily bioturbated skeletal limestone that represents a warm-water shoal facies following an underlying outer ramp stratigraphy, and an upper division of renewed deep-water deposition with organic-rich shale and fossiliferous lime mudstone. Pyritic deep-water black shale of the westerly advancing Taconic foreland basin disconformably overlies this platform succession. Stratigraphic correlation through the central embayment identifies likely synsedimentary faults and seaward-directed erosion bounding the Lindsay Formation in a region of older Ordovician faults and a change in the lithotectonic character of the crystalline basement. The Late Ordovician shallowing and localization of structural/erosional features are interpreted to record a structural hinge: a local accommodation to, first, foreland periphery uplift, then rapid subsidence related to westerly diachronous foreland subsidence through the platform interior. Spatial association of structures of differing ages suggests that reactivation of inherited weakened crust influenced Late Ordovician sedimentary patterns

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“…The angular, bimodal-polymodal, poorly sorted and platykurtic characteristics of the sediment grains suggest deposition from a suspension cloud, short distance of transport and quick burial. Given the grain size, modality (Dix and Al-Dulami, 2011),…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late Middle Miocene volcanism in Northwest Borneo, Southeast Asia: Implications for tectonics, paleoclimate and stratigraphic marker

Ramkumar

Santosh

Nagarajan

et al. 2018

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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Explosive volcanic events often produce pyroclastic materials that can be recognized from the geological record. These discrete pyroclastics form regional marker beds. Here we report the occurrence of a tephra layer interbedded within very thick coal beds near Mukah, Sarawak, Borneo. Traceable for tens of kilometers in the Mukah area of Sarawak, this tephra layer can be considered as regional stratigraphic marker with precise chronostratigraphic control. Systematic sedimentological, mineralogical, geochemical and zircon U-Pb geochronological studies have revealed a major effusive volcanic event during the latest Middle Miocene, presumably contemporaneous and/or related to a magmatic event of an earlier phase of the Mt. Kinabalu pluton or magmatism in West Sarawak or East Sabah. The volcanic event had promoted catastrophic flooding of coastal swamps and fallout from the ash clouds that formed a regionally monotonous tephra layer across the Serravallian-Tortonian boundary. In conjunction with the regional occurrences of trap rocks, structural trends and known tectonic events, we constrained the regional depositional environments, and climate. The tephra layer was deposited in a coastal plain-swamp,seasonal, shallow, high-moderate energy fluvial channel-lacustrine environmental setting, wherein atmospheric fallout and eroded material from regoliths formed over older basement and volcanic rocks of the hinterland which were mixed to produce the tephra layer. This tephra layer is sandwiched between the very thick coal beds. A pre-existent volcanic chamber that was active for a long time, also experienced periodic explosive activity from probably the same magma chamber and conduit and including a major explosive activity that recycled early-formed crystals and felsic magma (rhyolite-dacite) during the major effusive event are also recognized. Our findings provide robust evidence for the prevalence of intensive chemical weathering under a wet-humid climate, and relative tectonic quiescence before the major effusive event, and the existence of vast, monotonously gently-sloping coastal plains and luxuriant vegetation akin to the present.

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Late Ordovician (Chatfieldian) catastrophic volcanism and abrupt carbonate platform-interior subsidence: A tectonic link across a Taconian foreland basin (Quebec Embayment) due to inherited crustal weakness

Cited by 8 publications

References 59 publications

Aseismic ridge subduction as a driver for the Ordovician Taconic orogeny and Utica foreland basin in New England and New York State

Aseismic ridge subduction as a driver for the Ordovician Taconic orogeny and Utica foreland basin in New England and New York State

The Role of Regional and Local Structure in a Late Ordovician (Edenian) Foreland Platform-to-Basin Succession Inboard of the Taconic Orogen, Central Canada

Late Middle Miocene volcanism in Northwest Borneo, Southeast Asia: Implications for tectonics, paleoclimate and stratigraphic marker

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