Crustal uplift in the southern Superior Province, Canada, revealed by paleomagnetism

Abstract

A change in the polarity of magnetization with depth in the 2.45 Ga Matachewan dyke swarm is used to document vertical crustal movements that occurred at ∼1.9–2.3 Ga along the Kapuskasing Structural Zone, a 500-km-long fault zone that transects the Archean Superior Province of Canada. At shallow crustal levels dykes have a primary magnetization dominantly of one polarity, but at greater depths (∼20 km down) a polarity change occurs associated with the growth of exsolved magnetite in feldspar due to slow crustal cooling after cessation of Matachewan igneous activity. Regions of the dyke swarm with one dominant polarity are separated from those with opposite polarity by major faults. Using this polarity distribution and associated variations in the intensity of feldspar clouding and hydrous alteration, maps of the southern Superior Province are produced that display regional crustal tilting on which are superimposed more local fault-bounded blocks associated with the Kapuskasing zone. Some of these blocks have been recognized for the first time as a result of this study. The paleomagnetic work has also shown that the Matachewan swarm is regionally distorted both within and north of the Kapuskasing zone, and originally had a more radial disposition. This widespread distortion suggests that the lower crust was still relatively ductile at the time of deformation, perhaps due to high heat flow associated with the waning stages of the Matachewan mantle plume beneath.