Deformation conditions, kinematics, and displacement history of shallow crustal ductile shearing in the Norumbega fault system in the Northern Appalachians, eastern Maine

Abstract

The Norumbega fault system in the Northern Appalachians in eastern Maine experienced complex post-Acadian ductile and brittle deformation from middle through late Paleozoic times. Well-preserved epizonal ductile shear zones in Fredericton belt metasedimentary rocks and granitic batholiths that intrude them provide valuable information on the nature, geometry, and evolution of orogen-parallel strike-slip Norumbega faulting. Metasedimentary rocks were ductilely sheared into phyllonite schistose mylonite, whereas granite into mylonite within the ductile shear zones. Ductile shearing took place at conditions of the lower greenschist facies with peak temperatures on the order of 300–350° based on comparison of plastic quartz and brittle feldspar microstructures, confirming a shallow crustal environment during faulting. Ductile shear strain was partitioned into two major shear zones in easternmost Maine—the Waite and Kellyland zones—but these zones converge toward the southwest. Megascopic, mesoscopic, and microscopic kinematic indicators confirm that fault motion in both zones was dominantly dextral strike-slip. Detailed mapping, especially in the plutonic rocks, reveals a complex ductile deformation history in the area where the Waite and Kellyland zones converge. Shear strain is broadly distributed in the rocks between Kellyland and Waite zones, and increases toward their junction. Multiple dextral high-strain zones oblique to both zones resemble megascopic synthetic c′ shear bands. Together with the Kellyland and Waite master shear zones, these define a megascopic S–C′ structure system produced in a regional-scale dextral strike-slip shear duplex that developed in the transition zone between the deeper (south-central Maine) and shallower (eastern Maine) segments of the Norumbega fault system. Granite plutons caught within the strike-slip shear duplex were intensely sheared and progressively smeared into long and narrow slivers identified by this study. The western lobe of the Deblois pluton and the Lucerne pluton have been recognized as the sources, respectively of the Third Lake Ridge and Morrison Ridge granite slivers. Restoration of both granite slivers to their presumed original positions yields approximately 25 km of dextral strike-slip displacement along only the Kellyland and synthetic ductile shear zones.