The British Caledonides: interpretations from Cenozoic analogues

Abstract

AbstractRecent interpretations of Cenozoic arc systems and collision belts facilitate reinterpretation of some aspects of British Caledonide evolution. End-Cambrian ‘Grampian’ collision of the passive ‘Dalradian’ foreland following southeastwards subduction beneath an island arc was accompanied by initiation of the Highland Boundary Fault as a high-angle south-directed oblique-slip thrust. Mid-Ordovician to early Devonian northwestward oblique subduction of the Iapetus Ocean beneath the Grampian orogen resulted in a continental margin magmatic arc, back-arc thrusting and development of an accretionary prism, while southeastward subduction led to arc magmatism and back-arc extension followed by initiation of the Rheic Ocean as a back-arc marginal basin; this syn-subduction N–S asymmetry of the Iapetus Ocean margins was analogous to the E–W asymmetry of the modern Pacific. Closure of Iapetus was diachronous, earlier in the northeast: during end-Silurian collision the southern Caledonides behaved as a passive foreland; post-collision foreland thrusting resulted in deposition and deformation of Lower Old Red Sandstone foreland basin deposits in Wales, and probably in northwest-directed back-thrusting in the region of the Longford-Down accretionary prism. Subsequent dextral movement in the suture zone juxtaposed the southern Caledonides with Scotland and northern Ireland, beneath which northwestward subduction had continued into the early Devonian.