Brooks Range and Eastern Alps: A Tectonic Comparison: ABSTRACT

Abstract

A comparison of the tectonic evolution of the Brooks Range (BR) and the Eastern Alps (EA) reveals a remarkable parallelism. Both of these Mesozoic-Cenozoic orogenic belts are underlain by sialic crust formed in an earlier Paleozoic orogenic cycle. The old basement is revealed in major tectonic windows: the Tauern Fenster (EA) and the Doonerak Window-Schwatka Mountains (BR)--which are unconformably overlapped by transgressive, neritic marine clastic to carbonate successions--the Permo-Triassic through Hochstegenkalk sequence (EA), and the Kekiktuk-Kayak-Lisburne sequence (BR). These successions are passive-margin sequences that pass southward, in palinspastically restored cross sections, to synchronous deep-water facies deposited on ophiolitic basement--Bunderschiefer on T iassic-Jurassic ophiolites (EA) and Kuna facies or Etivluk sequence on upper Paleozoic ophiolites (BR). Onset of subduction-collision is marked by olistostromal facies--Cretaceous wildflysch (EA) and Jura-Cretaceous Okpikruak Formation (BR)--and the development of major flysch-molasse successions in the foreland basins of the collisional fold and thrust belts. Important major contrasts between these two mountain ranges reside in their colliding blocks and their post-orogenic histories. Alpine orogenesis was driven by continent-continent collision, closing out a young, narrow ocean, whereas Brooks Range deformation appears to have originated by arc-continent collision, closing out an older, broad (?)ocean. Younger Cenozoic deformation is extensional and strike-slip in the Eastern Alps, producing disjunctive basins, but Cenozoic deformation in the Brooks Range is diverse and includes compression in the east and extension in the far west. By means of numerous stratigraphic and structural analogs in the better known Eastern Alps, the comparison of these two mountain belts provides interpretive insight into the Brooks Range. End_of_Article - Last_Page 666------------