Tectonics and sedimentation in the hangingwall of a major extensional detachment: the Devonian Kvamshesten Basin, western Norway

Abstract

The Middle Devonian Kvamshesten Basin in western Norway is a late‐orogenic basin situated in the hangingwall of the regional extensional Nordfjord–Sogn Detachment Zone. The basin is folded into a syncline with the axis subparallel to the ductile lineations in the detachment zone. The structural and stratigraphic development of the Kvamshesten Basin indicates that the basin history is more complex than hitherto recognized. The parallelism stated by previous workers between mylonitic lineation below the basin and intrabasinal fold axes is only partly reflected in the configuration of sedimentary units and in the time‐relations between deposits on opposing basin margins. The basin shows a pronounced asymmetry in the organization and timing of sedimentary facies units. The present northern basin margin was characterized by bypass or erosion at the earliest stage of basin formation, but was subsequently onlapped and eventually overlain by fanglomerates and sandstones organized in well‐defined coarsening‐upwards successions. The oldest and thickest depositional units are situated along the present southern basin margin. This as well as onlap relations towards basement at low stratigraphic level indicates a significant component of southwards tilt of the basin floor during the earliest stages of deposition. The inferred south‐eastwards tilt was most likely produced by north‐westwards extension during early stages of basin formation. Synsedimentary intrabasinal faults show that at high stratigraphic levels, the basin was extending in an E–W as well as a N–S direction. Thus, the basin records an anticlockwise rotation of the syndepositional strain field. In addition, our observations indicate that shortening normal to the extension direction cannot have been both syndepositional and continuous, as suggested by previous authors. Through most of its history, the basin was controlled by a listric, ramp‐flat low‐angle fault that developed into a scoop shape or was flanked by transfer faults. The basin‐controlling fault was rooted in the extensional mylonite zone. Sedimentation was accompanied by formation of a NE‐ to N‐trending extensional rollover fold pair, evidenced by thickness variations in the marginal fan complexes, onlap relations towards basement and the fanning wedge geometry displayed by the Devonian strata. Further E–W extension was accompanied by N–S shortening, resulting in extension‐parallel folds and thrusts that mainly post‐date the preserved basin stratigraphy. During shortening, conjugate extensional faults were rotated to steeper dips on the flanks of a basin‐wide syncline and re‐activated as strike‐slip faults. The present scoop‐shaped, low‐angle Dalsfjord fault cross‐cut the folded basin and juxtaposed it against the extensional mylonites in the footwall of the Nordfjord–Sogn detachment. Much of this juxtaposition may post‐date sedimentation in the preserved parts of the basin.Basinal asymmetry as well as variations in this asymmetry on a regional scale may be explained by the Kvamshesten and other Devonian basins in western Norway developing in a strain regime affected by large‐scale sinistral strike‐slip subparallel to the Caledonian orogen.