Sverdrup Basin

The North America mid‐Cretaceous kimberlite corridor: Wet, edge‐driven decompression melting of an OIB‐type deep mantle source

“…Somerset Island kimberlite magmatism occurs within a tectonic quiet period in the region, it is much younger than the Late Silurian-Early Devonian Boothia Uplift, and older than the Late Cretaceous to Oligocene Eurekan Orogeny [Trettin, 1991] [Embry and Beauchamp, 2009;Herrle et al, 2015] and are coeval to slightly older than the age of the kimberlite magmatism. Based on stratigraphic evidence, the unconformities are interpreted as uplift related to the mafic magmatism [Embry and Beauchamp, 2009], and/or a change from rift to drift in the adjacent Amerasia Basin [Embry and Dixon, 2000]. We interpret that tectonomagmatic reactivation of preexisting NW-SE and Thelon Tectonic Zone-related N-S trending basement faults on Somerset Island (Figure 1 and supporting information S1) allowed for ascent of the small volume kimberlite magmas through the upper lithosphere at 97 to 93 Ma.…”

Upper cretaceous radiolarian assemblages and paleoenvironments of the Sverdrup Basin, Ellef Ringnes Island, Nunavut, Canada

“…The Sverdrup Basin is a Permo-Carboniferous pericratonic basin consisting of 13 km of Carboniferous to Eocene strata. The basin was created through rifting of the Siluro-Devonian Ellesmerian Orogenic Belt (Balkwill, 1978;Trettin, 1991;Embry & Beauchamp, 2008). At the onset of the Mesozoic the Sverdrup Basin had a bathymetric relief of an estimated 2 km or more following post-rift crustal subsidence.…”

“…At the onset of the Mesozoic the Sverdrup Basin had a bathymetric relief of an estimated 2 km or more following post-rift crustal subsidence. The depositional setting of the Sverdrup Basin shifted from being a carbonate shallow shelf setting during the Carboniferous and Permian to a siliciclastic-dominated basin in the Triassic, where flooding of the basin's margins allowed for deltaic progradation and further sediment influx (Embry & Beauchamp, 2008;Embry, 1988Embry, , 1991. Furthermore, diapirism associated with differential loading and regional compression mobilizing evaporites of the Carboniferous Otto Fiord Formation, had initiated by Middle Triassic and was contemporaneous with sedimentation throughout the Mesozoic (Boutelier et al, 2010;Embry & Beauchamp, 2008).…”

“…The depositional setting of the Sverdrup Basin shifted from being a carbonate shallow shelf setting during the Carboniferous and Permian to a siliciclastic-dominated basin in the Triassic, where flooding of the basin's margins allowed for deltaic progradation and further sediment influx (Embry & Beauchamp, 2008;Embry, 1988Embry, , 1991. Furthermore, diapirism associated with differential loading and regional compression mobilizing evaporites of the Carboniferous Otto Fiord Formation, had initiated by Middle Triassic and was contemporaneous with sedimentation throughout the Mesozoic (Boutelier et al, 2010;Embry & Beauchamp, 2008). Sverdrup Rim uplifted during the early Cretaceous and disconnected the Chukchi Basin from the Sverdrup Basin, causing a widespread sub-aerial unconformity, and first order sequence boundary (Embry, 1991, Embry & Dixon, 1990, Embry & Beauchamp, 2008.…”

“…Furthermore, diapirism associated with differential loading and regional compression mobilizing evaporites of the Carboniferous Otto Fiord Formation, had initiated by Middle Triassic and was contemporaneous with sedimentation throughout the Mesozoic (Boutelier et al, 2010;Embry & Beauchamp, 2008). Sverdrup Rim uplifted during the early Cretaceous and disconnected the Chukchi Basin from the Sverdrup Basin, causing a widespread sub-aerial unconformity, and first order sequence boundary (Embry, 1991, Embry & Dixon, 1990, Embry & Beauchamp, 2008.…”