Structure and Deformation at Borup Fiord Pass, NW Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada and Insights to the Eurekan Orogeny
Date
2014-01-17
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Abstract
Structural mapping was completed on northwest Ellesmere Island to improve the understanding of the regional structures, as well as provide insight into the Eurekan Orogen as a whole. The Eurekan Orogen is a Paleogene-aged deformation event caused by the collision of Greenland with the Canadian Arctic. This deformation belt is present on Svalbard, Greenland and Ellesmere Island, and extends west into the Sverdrup Basin. On Ellesmere Island, Borup Fiord Pass is a north-south valley that cross-cuts east-west oriented Eurekan structures. A 50km north-south transect was mapped at 1:25,000 scale extending from Higgins Glacier to Mount Leith. The study area includes dextral strike slip faults and detachment folds, consistent with the deformation style on Northern Ellesmere Island, and the results support interpretations made by stratigraphic work completed in the area. These results are applied to the orientation of regional primary stresses, to solve irregular relationships within the orogeny. Conjugate fault systems on Ellesmere Island support westward movement of Central Ellesmere towards the Sverdrup Basin. A gravity-driven salt detachment model is suggested to explain the northerly trending Eurekan structures within the Sverdrup Basin.
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Citation
Hill, M. (2014). Structure and Deformation at Borup Fiord Pass, NW Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada and Insights to the Eurekan Orogeny (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27904