The rhombohedral framework of the Scandinavian Caledonides and their foreland

Abstract

The Baltic Shield of northern Europe is transsected by approximately N-S and NW-SE striking Proterozoic fault and fracture zones that were remobilized during the Late Precambrian opening of the Iapetus ocean and the SE-directed thrusting of the Caledonian nappes in Mid-Paleozoic time. Remobilizations of these older structures account for a distinct subsidence history and sedimentological evolution over each fault-bounded basement segment during opening of the Iapetus and for a distinct metamorphic and structural development found within each block during overthrusting of the Caledonian nappes and the exhumation of the orogen. The two fault sets define basement blocks with rhombus-like plan sections which had individual subsidence histories during Iapetus rifting as is expressed by their Late Precambrian (Riphean and Vendian) to Silurian sedimentary cover of contrasting thickness and facies. This contrasting subsidence history of the various basement blocks may have contributed to differences in thrusting level, thrust excision (nappe size), and tectonic style. Correlative Caledonian nappes from adjacent faultbounded basement blocks were thrust diachronously resulting in transport transverse to the general thrusting direction. Thrusting oblique to the NW-SE fault zones and orogen parallel extension resulted in lateral-ramp folds in the cover and reactivation along the NW-SE faults imbricated the overlying nappes. The extent of basement imbrication and duplex formation is variable in the different segments. Within single segments, the basement imbrication and duplex-formation defined basement highs that roughly align in two parallel zones within the orogen. The site of the basement duplexes is probably controlled by older N-S fracture zones while the pinch- and-swell structure parallel to the orogen is caused by the individual deformation and thrusting behavior of the basement and cover sequences that are bound by the NW-SE fault zones. Thus the Caledonian orogen appears to have inherited the Precambrian structural grain of the underlying, Baltic Shield.