The Amer Belt: remnant of an Aphebian foreland fold and thrust belt

Abstract

Aphebian supracrustal sequences occur as outliers throughout the northwestern portion of the Churchill Structural Province of the Canadian Shield. In the Amer Lake area, medium- to high-grade, polydeformed Archean rocks are unconformably overlain by the Amer supracrustal sequence, which comprises quartzite, carbonate, mafic volcanic, and meta-arkose and meta-pelitic units. This supracrustal sequence is interpreted as having been deposited under miogeoclinal conditions, transitional to exogeoclinal.The Amer sequence crops out in a broad, west-southwest-plunging synclinorium and contains evidence of polyphase deformation that includes the following: (1) Folds plunging gently to the west-southwest and west-southwest-striking thrust faults, transected by oblique tear faults. Thrust vergence is northerly to northwesterly, onto the Archean craton. Because of the orientation of the synclinorium, there is a down plunge view of the thrusts at the eastern end of the belt. (2) Younger, localized cross folds, probably representative of progressive deformation. (3) Late, northwest-trending normal faults, with east side down.The stratigraphic elements and family of structures in the Amer Belt are similar to those found in the foreland fold and thrust belts of major Phanerozoic and Proterozoic orogens. The Amer Belt is interpreted as being a remnant of a once extensive foreland fold and thrust belt.Some workers have considered the northwestern Churchill Structural Province a large cratonic foreland of the Trans-Hudson Orogen. However, remnants of a foreland fold and thrust belt, a major batholithic complex, and profound geophysical breaks interpreted as being possible sutures are incorporated into a new tectono-stratigraphic model that proposes that a cryptic Aphebian orogen exists in the northwestern Churchill Structural Province.