Magnetotelluric and teleseismic study across the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, Canadian Shield: A Neoarchean mantle suture?

Abstract

The Snowbird tectonic zone (STZ) is a fundamental boundary within Canada's Western Churchill Province, one of the world's largest yet poorly‐known fragments of Archean crust. Geophysical data from a collocated magnetotelluric and teleseismic transect across the northeastern segment of the STZ provide an image of its subsurface geometry and indicate that it may have been previously mislocated. The model suggests that (1) the STZ has played a major role in the Neoarchean assembly and Paleoproterozoic reworking of the western Canadian Shield, (2) it was reactivated in a manner comparable to other crustal‐scale features such as the Kapuskasing zone of the Superior Province, Canada, and the Redbank thrust of the Arunta block, central Australia, and (3) it juxtaposes mantle blocks with contrasting geophysical properties, revealing a lithosphere‐scale overlap of the leading edges of the Rae and Hearne domains. The STZ thus records plate interactions in the Neoarchean comparable in scale with that of modern orogenic belts.