The Trans-Hudson Orogen (THO) of North America is one of the earliest orogens in Earth's history that evolved through a complete Wilson Cycle. It represents c. 150 Ma of opening of the Manikewan Ocean, from c. 2.07-1.92 Ga, followed by its demise in the interval 1.92-1.80 Ga, during the final phase of growth of the Supercontinent Columbia (Nuna). It is characterized by three lithotectonic divisions: (i) Churchill margin (or peri-Churchill); (ii) Reindeer Zone; and (iii) Superior margin (or peri-Superior). The peri-Churchill realm records progressive outward continental growth by accretion of Archaean to Palaeoproterozoic micro-continents (Hearne, Meta Incognita/Core Zone, Sugluk) and eventually arc terranes (La Ronge-Lynn Lake) to the Slave-Rae nuclei, with attendant development of orogenies and basin inversions related to the specific accretion events (1.92-1.89 Ga Snowbird; 1.88-1.865 Ga Foxe; 1.87-1.865 Ga Reindeer orogenies). The Reindeer Zone is characterized by primitive to evolved oceanic arcs, back-arc basins, oceanic crust and ocean plateaus that formed during closure of the Manikewan Ocean, and accretion of a micro-continent (Sask Craton) and smaller Archaean crustal fragments. The terminal phase of the Trans-Hudson orogeny represents collision between the Superior craton, the Reindeer Zone and the composite western Churchill Province during the interval 1.83-1.80 Ga.

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A generalized interpolation framework using radial basis functions (RBF) is presented that implicitly models three-dimensional continuous geological surfaces from scattered multivariate structural data. Generalized interpolants can use multiple types of independent geological constraints by deriving for each, linearly independent functionals. This framework does not suffer from the limitations of previous RBF approaches developed for geological surface modelling that requires additional offset points to ensure uniqueness of the interpolant. A particularly useful application of generalized interpolants is that they allow augmenting on-contact constraints with gradient constraints as defined by strike-dip data with assigned polarity. This interpolation problem yields a linear system that is analogous in form to the previously developed potential field implicit interpolation method based on co-kriging of contact increments using parametric isotropic covariance functions. The general form of the mathematical framework presented herein allows us to further expand on solutions by: (1) including stratigraphic data from above and below the target surface as inequality constraints (2) modelling anisotropy by data-driven eigen analysis of gradient constraints and (3) incorporating additional constraints by adding linear functionals to the system, such as fold axis constraints. Case studies are presented that demonstrate the advantages and general performance of the surface modelling method in sparse data environments where the contacts that constrain geological surfaces are rarely exposed but structural and off-contact stratigraphic data can be plentiful. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (

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