The Beaufort Sea Fold-and-Thrust Belt, Northwestern Canada: Implications for Thrust-Belt Evolution

Abstract

The northeasternmost segment of the Cordilleran thrust belt of western North American underlies the Beaufort Sea continental margin. Folds and associated northesat-directed thrusts in this region formed synchronously with Tertiary sedimentation. As a result, the times of fold development can be determined from reflection seismic data by analyzing lateral thickness changes in stratigraphic sequences of known ages, and onlap and truncation relationships at unconformities. Thrust faulting occurred throughout the late Paleocene-Pliocene. The abundant temporal data indicate the deformational seuqence was significantly differet from the simple, steplike, foreland-propagating model formulated in other less well-dated thrust belts. Many thrusts were active simultaneously, especially during the late Eocnee, when the region of active thrusting had an across-strike width of greater than 200 km. This observation calls into question the popular concept that only one thrust moves at a time as a thrust belt develops. The thrust belt propagated along, as well as across, strike. During the late Paleocene-middle Eocene, the area of active thrusting was bounded on the southeast by poorly imaged zones of right-lateral strike-slip faults that apparently are the northern offshore continuation of the Rapid fault array. The change in the age of thrusting along strike results in no obvious geometricalmore » anomalies and could not be deduced without timing information. This has an important implication: temporal data cannot necessarily be projected along strike in a thrust belt.« less