Timing, style and sedimentary evolution of Late Palaeozoic-Mesozoic extensional basins of East Greenland

Abstract

The late Palaeozoic-Mesozoic sedimentary basins of East Greenland record a complex series of events which eventually led to the successful opening of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea in the late Palaeocene. Major tectonic events and regional sea-level changes caused by plate movements and reorganizations, overprinted by the effects of local tectonics and associated sea-level changes are reflected in thick, unconformity bounded sequences. Caledonian crustal shortening and thickening culminated in the Silurian, and was succeeded by extensional collapse, vulcanism and intrusion of post-tectonic granites in the Devonian. Large, transtensional pull-apart basins were formed and became filled with continental red beds. Basin margins underwent repeated episodes of thrusting. A change to rifting took place in the latest Devonian. Rapid subsidence and continental deposition punctuated by episodes of igneous activity and contractional deformation continued from the Devonian until early Permian times for about 120 Ma leaving a record of alluvial fan and flood plain siliciclastics alternating with rhyolitic and alkaline basaltic intrusions and extrusions. Later basin subsidence reflected thermal cooling and contraction following the prolonged late Palaeozoic period of crustal thinning. Important phases of block faulting occurred at several intervals during Mesozoic times climaxing in the Volgian-Valanginian interval. Cenozoic basin inversions resulted in dramatic decoupled uplift and tilting of large blocks. The degree of Devonian extensional collapse, the position and orientation of Caledonian thrust planes, and the localization of mid- and late Palaeozoic transtensional strike-slip basins exerted a profound control on localization and style of the compartmentalized Mesozoic rift. The importance of pre-Mesozoic history, timing of Mesozoic tectonic events and the interplay of tectonism, and rates of subsidence, sea-level change and sediment influx have close parallels in the North Sea area. Examples from the exposed Mesozoic succession of East Greenland may thus serve as excellent predictive guides for subsurface geology around the British Isles.

Depositional evolution of a progradational to aggradational, mixed-influenced deltaic succession: Jurassic Tofte and Ile formations, southern Halten Terrace, offshore Norway

“…Terrace were deposited in the same seaway as age equivalent strata on East Greenland (Surlyk, 1990;Alsgaard et al, 2003;Vosgerau et al, 2004;Eide et al, 2016). Relatively short source catchments in the Baltic Shield were present east of the Halten Terrace during the Cretaceous (Martinsen et al, 2005;Elliott et al, 2012;Elliott et al, 2015;, and it has been M A N U S C R I P T…”

A review of the NE Atlantic conjugate margins based on seismic refraction data

“…Larsen & Marcussen (1992) suggested that the basin infill there might even be up to 18 km thick. Following the postCaledonian extension with fault-controlled Devonian basins, late Jurassic -early Cretaceous rifting resulted in the deposition of marine sediments over the Devonian sediments in Jameson Land (Surlyk 1990). …”

The onset of the North Atlantic Igneous Province in a rifting perspective

“…Permian and Triassic broadly E-W-directed extension between Eurasia and Greenland resulted in the formation of numerous large half-graben basins widely distributed at the margins (Ziegler, 1989;Brekke et al 1999;Doré et al 1999;Surlyk, 1990). Jurassic E-W extension between Eurasia and North America-Greenland gave way to a dominantly NW-SE-directed extension in Early to Middle Cretaceous times (Doré et al 1999).…”