Abstract
Palaeotemperature studies of rocks on the Scandinavian Platform suggest heating of the near-surface Cambrian to Silurian sequence to temperatures between 80 and 120°C. A foreland basin has been proposed to have formed on the eastern side of the Scandinavian Caledonides, during the Silurian and Devonian, as a result of the Caledonian Orogeny. The aim of the paper is to model the thickness and horizontal extent of such a basin over Sweden. The thickness is estimated using two different approaches (i) by a thermal model based on measured thermal conductivities of preserved sediments, and (ii) by a flexural-subsidence model due to loading of an elastic lithosphere from the Caledonian mountain chain. The thermal model gave sediment thicknesses for southern-central Sweden in the range 2.4 km to 3.9 km, and the flexural model gave an estimate of approximately 2.4 km, but was strongly dependent on the assumed flexural rigidity. The width of the basin, also estimated by the latter modelling, was found to be approximately 300 km.
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