Tectonics of the Kola collision suture and adjacent Archaean and Early Proterozoic terrains in the northeastern region of the Baltic Shield

Abstract

As preparation for the deep-seismic and other geophysical experiments along the Polar Profile, which transects the Granulite belt and the Kola collision suture, structural field work has been performed in northernmost Finland and Norway, and published geological information including data from the neighbouring Soviet territory of the Kola Peninsula, have been compiled and reinterpreted. Based on these studies and a classification according to crustal and structural ages, the northeastern region of the Baltic Shield is divided into six major tectonic units. These units are separated and outlined by important low-angle, ductile shear or thrust zones of Late Archaean to Early Proterozoic age. The lateral extension of these units into Soviet territory and their involvement in large-scale crustal deformation structures, are described. Using the “view down the plunge” method, a generalised tectonic cross-section that predicts the crustal structures along the Polar Profile is compiled, and the structures around the Kola deep drill-hole are reinterpreted. The Kola suture belt, through parts of which the Kola deep bore-hole has been drilled, is considered to represent a ca. 1900 Ma old arc-continent and continent-continent collision suture. It divides the northeastern Shield region into two major crustal compartments: a Northern compartment (comprising the Murmansk and Sörvaranger units) and a Southern compartment (including the Inari unit, the Granulite belt and the Tanaelv belt, as well as the more southernly situated South Lapland-Karelia “craton” of the Karelian province of the Svecokarelian fold belt). The Kola suture belt is outlined by a 2–40 km wide and ca. 500 km long crustal belt composed of 1. (1) Early Proterozoic (ca. 2400-2000 Ma old) metavolcanic and metasedimentary sequences which originally formed part of the attenuated margin of the Northern Archaean compartment, and 2. (2) the remains of a ca. 2000-1900 Ma old, predominantly andesitic island-arc terrain. This island-arc terrain was built up above a SW-plunging subduction zone, initiated ca. 2000 Ma ago in the southern part of a newly formed oceanic domain, the Kola ocean. Due to continued subduction and complete consumption of this ocean, the northern passive margin deposits and the island-arc terrain were brought into tectonic juxtaposition, and during the final arc-continent and continent-continent collision, they were overthrusted onto the northern Archaean continent. Along its southern boundary, the Kola suture belt is tectonically overlain by the Archaean rocks of the Inari unit. This unit was derived from a microcontinent split from the Southern compartment, the depositional basin of the protoliths of the Granulite belt being formed to the south of the microcontinent. The Inari microcontinent appears to have wedged out towards the southeast, as the continuation of the Granulite belt north of the White Sea is in direct tectonic contact with the Kola suture belt. The Granulite belt is composed of high-grade paragneisses and minor amounts of meta-igneous rocks. The paragneisses formed from thick turbidite and mass flow deposits lain down in a back-arc basin south of the Inari microcontinent. A thermal anomaly beneath the partly oceanic basement of the back-arc basin is believed to have contributed to the ca. 2000-1900 Ma old granulite facies metamorphism of the granulite assemblages. Granulite facies conditions still prevailed when the Inari microcontinent overrode the granulites and when the Granulite belt as such was formed and was overthrusted (for at least 100 km) towards the southwest. In conjunction with the latter event, the rocks of the basement of the basin also became involved in thrust movements. These now form the Tanaelv belt, which shows gradational tectonic contacts towards underlying cover and basement rocks of the South Lapland-Karelia craton. Although not all parts of this craton were affected by the Svecokarelian deformation, it is considered to belong to the Karelian province of the Svecokarelian fold belt. A ca. 1900-1800 Ma old episode of wrench faulting and the intrusion of 1790-1770 Ma old post-kinematic granites concluded the Svecokarelian evolution of the northeastern Shield region.