Abstract
Kronprins Christian Land in the extreme north of the East Greenland Caledonides, exposes a thin-skinned thrust belt up to 50 km wide developed in Ordovician–Silurian platform limestones and dolostones of the Iapetus passive margin. This thrust belt is characterised by a series of SSW–NNE-trending and east-dipping Caledonian thrusts with westward displacements of generally a few kilometres each. It passes westwards into undisturbed autochthonous foreland. Based on a line and area restoration, total displacement along a well-exposed WNW–ESE section through the thrust belt amounts to 17.6 km, which represents a shortening of 45% in the line of section. Biostratigraphic control in the limestone and dolostone succession is based on conodonts and macrofossils. The alteration colours of the conodonts provide estimates of maximum burial temperatures, which show that the thickness of the overlying thrust sheets ranged from about 6 to 12.5 km from west to east across the thrust belt. Since the estimated former thickness of the Vandredalen thrust sheet above the thin-skinned parautochthonous thrust belt is insufficient to yield the temperatures attained, higher thrust sheets must once have extended across the region.
Highlights
Kronprins Christian Land in the extreme north of the East Greenland Caledonides, exposes a thin-skinned thrust belt up to 50 km wide developed in Ordovician–Silurian platform limestones and dolostones of the Iapetus passive margin
The western marginal thrust belt is characterised by the presence of foreland windows, in most of which a thin Lower Palaeozoic sequence is preserved beneath the bordering thrusts demonstrating that the thrusting episode is postOrdovician (Higgins et al 2001a)
The Greenland Inland Ice obscures the western parts of the marginal thrust belt along most of its length, and the transition between the Caledonian orogenic belt and the autochthonous foreland is only completely exposed in Kronprins Christian Land (79°30′–82°N)
Summary
Throughout most of its length, the East Greenland Caledonides are dominated by crystalline orthogneiss complexes (Fig. 1) that retain much of their ‘basement’ character despite Caledonian reworking. The younger, Neoproterozoic, Eleonore Bay Supergroup is conspicuous in the fjord region of East Greenland (72°–74°30′N), where it is unconformably overlain by the Vendian Tillite Group and Lower Palaeozoic sediments, forming a succession up to 18.5 km thick Both sedimentary successions are variably affected by Caledonian metamorphism and deformation, and both host Caledonian granites (Kalsbeek et al 2001a, b). In the northern part of the East Greenland Caledonides, latest Palaeoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic supracrustal successions are represented by the Independence Fjord Group and associated volcanic rocks (Figs 1, 2; see below) These are widely exposed in the Caledonian foreland west of Danmark Fjord, and are conspicuously developed within the Caledonian thrust complexes of Kronprins Christian Land, where they are overlain by the Neoproterozoic Rivieradal Group siliciclastic succession and Hagen Fjord Group (Fig. 2; see stratigraphy section below). The root zone of the Vandredalen thrust sheet, along the SSW–NNE-trending Hekla Sund – Spærregletscher lineament, coincides approximately with the west margin of the original rift basin (Hekla Sund Basin) in which the Rivieradal Group succession accumulated (Higgins et al 2001b)
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