’Taters versus Sliders: Evidence for a Long-Lived History of Strike-Slip Displacement along the Canadian Arctic Transform System (CATS)

Abstract

Recent field-based studies indicate that the northern margin of North America is best interpreted as a tectonic boundary that experienced a long, complex history of strike-slip displacement. Structures juxtaposing the Pearya and Arctic Alaska terranes with North America are linked and define the Canadian Arctic transform system (CATS) that accommodated Paleozoic terrane translation, truncation of the Caledonian orogen, and shortening within the transpressional Ellesmerian orogen. The structure was reactivated during Mesozoic translational opening of the Canada Basin. Land-based evidence supporting translation along the Canadian Arctic margin is consistent with transform structures defined by marine geophysical data, thereby providing a robust alternative to the current consensus model for rotational opening of the Canada Basin.

Provenance Analysis of the Andrée Land Basin and Implications for the Paleogeography of Svalbard in the Devonian

“…However, sampled units from the Pearya terrane contain few 560–510 Ma detrital zircon ages and do not appear to correspond well with the main Timanian age peak from the Late Devonian strata of Canadian Arctic Islands (Anfinson, Leier, Embry, & Dewing, 2012; Anfinson, Leier, Gaschnig, et al., 2012) or the Middle and Late Devonian units of the Andrée Land Group. Evidence for Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic (∼710–520 Ma) magmatism is also found other Arctic terranes such as Arctic Alaska, the Farewell and Alexander terranes, but is lacking in the Canadian Arctic Islands and Alaska's north slope subterrane (e.g., McClelland et al., 2021). Within Svalbard, late Ediacaran to Cambrian 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages are present in the Northwestern and Northeastern Basement provinces (Dallmeyer et al., 1990; Gayer et al., 1966), but this age group is notably absent from zircon U‐Pb ages of schists and gneisses of the Northwestern Basement Province (Koglin et al., 2022).…”

“…(2016) (locations in Figure 1a). Figure 10 shows the pre‐Ellesmerian position of the involved blocks (Piepjohn et al., 2013; von Gosen et al., 2012) prior to ultimate transpression of Svalbard and Pearya with the Laurentian margin (e.g., Malone et al., 2019; McClelland et al., 2021). This collisional process is still not entirely understood and possibly subject to a re‐definition of the Ellesmerian orogen, and the delineation of new plate boundaries within Laurussia (or Laurentia/Baltica; Figure 10 inset).…”

“…McClelland et al. (2021) suggest this strike slip system is truncated by the Canadian Arctic Transform System (CATS), providing a possible mechanism for transferring Caledonian rocks of Svalbard along the northern Greenland margin. The similarity of Neoproterozoic and Early Paleozoic stratigraphy and faunal assemblages found in both Svalbard's Northwestern and Northeastern Basement Provinces and that of the Northeast Greenland have long suggested a correlation of these regions (e.g., Gee, 2015).…”

“…The Caledonian orogeny resulted from the collision of Baltica, Laurentia, and Avalonia in the Ordovician to Early Devonian (Gee et al., 2008; McKerrow et al., 2000; Roberts & Gee, 1985; Torsvik et al., 1996). The geologic remnants of the Caledonian orogen are well defined in the British Isles, Scandinavia, Greenland, and Svalbard (Dewey, 1969; Gasser, 2014; Gee & Teben'kov, 2004; McKerrow et al., 2000) and evidence of Caledonian age deformation, translation, and metamorphism is reported from the Pearya terrane of the Canadian Arctic Islands (McClelland et al., 2021; Trettin, 1987), Franz Joseph Land (Knudsen et al., 2019), southern Lomonosov Ridge (Rekant et al., 2019), Chukchi Borderland (Brumley et al., 2015), and North American Cordilleran terranes (Gehrels et al., 1999; Miller et al., 2011) (locations on Figure 1a). The Caledonian orogen has an observed along strike length of >3,500 km (likely much greater), and involved a complex, polyphase history of terrane amalgamation, oceanic crust subduction and obduction, arc magmatism, basement nappe formation, metamorphism, anatexis, strike‐slip faulting and extensional deformation (Dewey, 1969; Gasser, 2014; Gee, 2015; McKerrow et al., 2000).…”

Амеразийская Микроплита В Структуре И Геодинамической Эволюции Арктики

“…1б). В этом плане следует привести работу (McClelland et al, 2021), в которой авторы на основе исследования структурнодеформационных признаков окраинно-континентальных комплексов пород Канадского Арктического архипелага, приходят к выводу о длительной и унаследованной истории сдвиговых перемещений вдоль Северогренландско-Канадской трансформной системы (в их статье -CATS -Canadian Arctic transform system) и в мезозойско-кайнозойское время включительно.…”