Western Davis Strait, a volcanic transform margin with petroliferous features

Conjugate margins — An oversimplification of the complex southern North Atlantic rift and spreading system?

“…the Labrador Sea (Figure 1) and the adjacent Baffin Bay to the north) was the next region to partially break up (Abdelmalak et al, 2018). The NW Atlantic Manuscript under review for Interpretation formed via multiphase, divergent motion between Greenland and North America, resulting in oceanic crust in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay but not the Davis Strait (Chalmers and Pulvertaft, 2001;Hosseinpour et al, 2013;Peace et al, 2018b;Jauer et al, 2019). Estimates of breakup timing in the Labrador Sea ( Figure 1) are variable depending on the interpretation of the earliest magnetic anomaly, ranging from approximately 62 to 80 Ma (Roest and Srivastava, 1989;Chalmers and Laursen, 1995;Srivastava and Roest, 1999;Keen et al, 2017).…”

“…The present study area of the Canadian Margin and its conjugates is affected by a number of such features in both the continental and oceanic domains. For example, to the north of the primary study area, the Davis Strait between the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay is a complex region of predominantly continental crust between the aforementioned small oceanic basins (Abdelmalak et al, 2018;Peace et al, 2018b;Heron et al, 2019;Jauer et al, 2019). Here, interaction of rift processes with pre-existing structures has resulted in a complex region containing widespread transpressional and transtensional structures (Wilson et al, 2006;Abdelmalak et al, 2012;Peace et al, 2018b), that present difficulties in reconstructions (Hosseinpour et al, 2013).…”

Depleted and ultradepleted basalt and picrite in the Davis Strait: Paleocene volcanism associated with a transform continental margin

“…Funck et al (2012) noted a narrow gravity high that runs SSW-NNE throughout the entire Davis Strait, and concluded that it is composed of igneous crust along its entire length, formed along a leaky transform fault. Jauer et al (2019) identified large areas with volcanic rocks within the transform zone. The Davis Strait High is underlain by continental crust, and its northern part is capped by sediments and volcanic rocks (Dalhoff et al 2006;Suckro et al 2013).…”

“…2) the volcanic rocks have a combined thickness of c. 860 m. Between 2700 m and 3800 m depth, the succession consists of five intervals of volcanic rocks interbedded with sediments; between 3800 m and TD at 3998 m the well penetrated sediments of the Markland Formation. Volcanic rocks are expected to occur deeper than this because seismic sections (Sørensen, 2006;Funck et al 2007;Gregersen et al 2019;Jauer et al 2019) indicate that only around half the thickness of the 'basalt þ sediments' unit (1.8 km) of the crust has been penetrated.…”

“…This area comprises one of the world's largest transform continental margins (Mercier de Lépinay et al 2016), which connects the oceanic areas in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay. This part of the margin has a complicated structure and history and, for a transform margin, contains an unusually large amount of volcanic material (Reid & Jackson, 1997;Mercier de Lépinay et al 2016;Jauer et al 2019).…”