triassic liassic basins and climate of the atlantic passive margins as the laurasian plate tracked north over the new england hotspots in the latetriassic the heated and stretched crust failed along re activated basement structures including micro plate sutures and continental extensions of transforms this created the rifted passive margins of the atlantic and established the tectonic and climatic setting of wrench generated coastal ranges and detrital basins bordering vast salt flats that were overlain with waters from the tethys sea

multicomponent magnetizations from the mississippian mauch chunk formation of the central appalachians and their tectonic implications previous paleomagnetic study of mississippian red beds of the mauch chunk formation from the central appalachians reported shallow inclination directions a positive fold test was obtained after thermal demagnetization typically to only 550 c the near equatorial position for north america indicated by these results has been used to support the idea of a circa 15 latitudinal tectonic offset of the acadia displaced terrain in the northern appalachians the present study of 153 samples from 29 sites occupied in the mauch chunk formation of eastern and southern pennsylvania reveals multicomponent magnetizations a characteristic component declination d 161 0 inclination i 27 8 alpha95 a95 7 9 with unblocking temperatures usually concentrated above 650 c and with dual polarity 10 sites normal 13 sites reversed is isolated in 23 sites and passes a fold test at the 99 confidence level it is interpreted as an early acquired hematitic detrital or chemical magnetization of pre alleghanian orogeny and pre kiaman reverse polarity interval age a southern hemisphere paleolatitude of 15 for the sampling area is indicated another component has generally lower unblocking temperatures which however can extend up to 650 c or more and therefore is also likely to be carried by hematite this secondary magnetization d 170 6 i 5 3 a95 5 0 isolated in 25 sites is of uniform reverse polarity and application of fold tests suggests that it is of synfolding origin a near equatorial paleolatitude 3 n at the time of acquisition is obtained consistent with permo carboniferous kiaman directions from north america incomplete removal of the secondary component can explain the previous results from the mauch chunk comparison of the present paleomagnetic results with those from similar age rocks in the canadian maritimes does not support a latitudinal offset of acadia with respect to interior north america in the early carboniferous in fact according to these and other paleomagnetic data thought to be representative of this age the atlantic bordering continents already were near to a pangea configuration the alleghanian and particularly the hercynian orogenies therefore may not be associated with the closure of a large latitudinal ocean later in the carboniferous and permian alleghanian deformation however may have resulted in the partial bending of the pennsylvanian salient on the basis of apparently systematic deviations in paleomagnetic declinations

reprocessing and reinterpretation of cocorp southern appalachian profiles abstract reprocessing of cocorp southern appalachian data was focused on basic seismic evidence for continuation of sediments beneath a master decollement the most important evidence is a nearly continuous series of subhorizontal reflections extending from the valley and ridge province into the piedmont province continuity of subhorizontal reflections becomes tenuous in the inner piedmont careful reprocessing has yielded evidence for termination of strong reflections beneath the allochthon and the beginning of a relatively weak and complex series of events termination of sedimentary rocks beneath the piedmont is interpreted from true amplitude seismic data a zone of detachment continues southeast of the sediment termination as far as the master decollement root zone research on stacking velocities has indicated that complex velocity structures could create apparent low stacking velocities this phenomenon may occur in the charlotte belt of georgia bouguer gravity can be modeled as a former craton of normal density with an accreted margin of very slightly higher density variation in crustal thickness also contributes to the bouguer gravity gradient no continuous large scale overthrust is needed southeast of the interpreted master decollement root zone located beneath the kings mountain belt and charlotte belt

paleomagnetic evidence for tectonic rotations in the variscan mountain belt a critical review of devonian and carboniferous paleomagnetic results from the hercynian basement of western and central europe reveals large rotations their geographic distribution suggests a tectonic origin for large scale curved structures such as the ibero armorican arc or the variscan v together with a coherence of the hercynian domain with time geodynamic models which can have produced the observed rotation pattern are discussed it appears that lateral compression due to the accommodation of continental collision as in the india asia convergence is a plausible mechanism although variscan and himalayan mountain belts have different characteristics

revision of the age of magnetization of the montmartin red beds normandy france summary a new roadcut has enabled us to sample the south dipping limb of the montmartin syncline for a palaeomagnetic reevaluation of an earlier result published by jones van der voo bonhommet in combination with the results previously published in 1979 for the north dipping beds of the syncline a conclusively negative fold test is obtained the resulting magnetization declination inclination 206 3 95 12 palaeopole at 38 s 325 e is interpreted to be of late carboniferous age not late devonian as thought earlier simultaneously we have re evaluated the age of the rocks previously thought to be late devonian on the basis of acritarchs chitinozoans and spores it has not been possible to reconfirm these fossils not even in the same samples as studied originally in contrast the regional presence of early palaeozoic fossils suggests to us an age similar to that of other red beds in the arrnorican massif which have been dated as early ordovician the geodynamic implications of our finding that the montmartin rocks are completely remagnetized however are of no great consequence for the geodynamics of the hercynian belt pre folding magnetization obtained from silurian and devonian rocks in spain and germany argue for the same conclusion as reached erroneously in our earlier study namely that the armorican massif and adjacent parts of hercynian europe were adjointed to north america great britain the baltic shield and the russian platform since at least late devonian time if a medio european ocean existed during the palaeozoic it was virtually closed before the mid devonian and of insignificant width during culm deposition in early carboniferoirs time

development of the palaeogeography of pangaea from late carboniferous to early permian abstract old and new well and poorly known lithofacies data of moscovian and artinskian age in the area limited by the arctic sea and central africa the atlantic ocean and the ural mountains have been plotted on present day maps the facies mapped and related environments allow the recognition of a series of different palaeogeographic palaeotectonic units including the late carboniferous to early permian deep sea to palaeo tethyan ocean west siberia kazakhstan continent and uralian kazakhstan tienshan arc uralian foredeep up to the closing arms of the uralian ocean precaspian basin russian platform donets rift basin caucasian moesian dobrogean polish oslo basinal belt syn tectonic hercynian foreland basin intramontane post hercynian basins iran anatolian hellenic dinaric carnic basin branching into the hungarian seaway apennine basin branching into the cantabrian and south portuguese basins oman iraq levantine sicily deep basin and inferred oceanic sea way south peri tethyan platform basins east arabian cratonic basin and north african intracratonic basins the subsidence sedimentation trends of these units were correlated and compared through lithostratigraphic logs bathymetric curves and uncorrected cumulative stratigraphic curves the sets of original and processed data were used to test two different palaeodynamic models a pangaea a model static from late carboniferous to triassic and a mobile pangaea b model with different dextral displacements between laurussia and gondwanaland in the same time interval the best fit for our data requires a strike slip offset of about 800 km from moscovian to artinskian time this model implies a first quasi pangaea or pangaea b assembly at the carboniferous permian transition an ephemeral pangaea b break up driven by an early permian oblique rift across the mediterranean to caribbean areas and a final pangaea a assembly in the mid to late permian the two palinspastic maps describing the model have been cross checked by comparison with an independent set of biogeographic features of late carboniferous and early permian overall floral reptile and marine benthic organism distribution is consistent with the early permian trans pangaea seaway inferred from facies and palaeodynamic analyses

kinematic history of the narragansett basin massachusetts and rhode island constraints on late paleozoic plate reconstructions the formation of the narragansett basin of rhode island and massachusetts and the polyphase deformation geometry of the pennsylvanian age basin sediments can be explained by collision and strike slip interactions between an avalonian microcontinent the european north american plate and the african plate during the late paleozoic sinistral movement between an avalonian microcontinent and the european north american plate resulted in formation of pull apart basins subsequently africa moved toward north america along an east west trending dextral megashear zone and collided with the eastern margin of southern north america the narragansett basin is located on the avalonian microcontinent near the suture with the north american continent and in the transition zone between the megashear and the collision tectonic regimes the basin shape stratigraphy and sedimentary relationships can be explained by the coalescence of two composite grabens which formed at different times the thicker northern graben is only affected by one deformation whereas the southern graben shows evidence of four distinct phases of postrifting deformation the first two coaxial folding deformations of the basin sediments are attributed to the closure of the basin complex during collision of africa and north america the third and fourth deformations are interpreted as sinistral r riedal and dextral shears respectively associated with the east west trending megashear system a prograde barrovian metamorphic front started in the western portion of the southern graben slightly after the first deformation and migrated northward and eastward where it is synchronous with the second deformation

subsidence in late paleozoic basins in the northern appalachians during the interval between continental collision in the devonian and continental breakup in the triassic the northern appalachians became the site of a wide plate boundary zone of dominantly right lateral strike slip as is typical of intracontinental transforms tectonism was both diachronous and rapidly variable along strike through regimes of pure strike slip transpressional deformation and rapid subsidence of extensional basins up to 9 km of mainly nonmarine clastic sediments accumulated in these local depocenters which subsided episodically in two stages 1 an initial phase of stretching and thinning of the lithosphere when subsidence was rapid fault controlled and often accompanied by volcanism and 2 a subsequent phase of gradual thermal subsidence during which the depositional basins expanded to bury the earlier border faults and progressively younger sedimentary units onlapped basement the largest depocenter the magdalen basin opened as a pull apart between strike slip faults in newfoundland and new brunswick from late devonian to early carboniferous subsequent thermal subsidence affected a large area during medial and late carboniferous a phenomenon that is well recorded to the north and west where no later tectonism occurred in areas to the south and east of the basin strike slip on other faults continued into the time of thermal subsidence introducing complications such as localized transpressional deformation and rapid subsidence in smaller pull aparts

paleomagnetism and the orocline hypothesis eldredge s bachtadse v and van der voo r 1985 paleomagnetism and the orocline hypothesis in n l carter and s uyeda editors collision tectonics deformation of continental lithosphere tectonophysics 119 153 179 oroclines were originally defined by carey as curved mountain belts which initially were straight or at feast straighter than they are today in the last few years the definition has been broadened to include any curved mountain belt regardless of its original shape since the occurrence of oroclinal bending is best recorded in the change of declination as a function of tectonic setting paleomagnetic and structural data from six potential oroclines have been compiled and analyzed to determine the amount of rotation displayed by the change of paleomagnetic declination relative to the change in strike of the fold belt the arcuate belts investigated are the sicilian calabr n arc and the umbrian arc of italy the swiss portion of the jura mountains the central portion of the appalachian mountains from pennsylvania to virginia u s a the wyoming idaho overthrust belt of western north america and the hercynides of western and central europe the jura mountains and the pennsylvania virginia portion of the appalachians fail to show significant oroclinal bending the wyoming idaho belt shows a combination of rotated possibly oroclinai and unrotated thrust sheets in the sicilian calabrian arc significant oroclinat bending caused by the impingement of the calabria peloritani nappes in the late tertiary can be demonstrated while the umbrian arc of similar age in the northern apennines also shows oroclinal bending on a smaller scale hercynian europe the only belt included in which deformation of basement rocks can be demonstrated shows oroclinal bending at least so as well as a marked original curvature 70 in its western part common to all the orociines studied in this paper is the probable impingement of a rigid block or continental margin during the orogeny causing subsequent deformation and bending of the fold belt

basement cover relationships in the appalachian caledonian variscan orogen mid devonian end of acadian orogeny to end of permian

paleomagnetic evidence for the continuity and independent movement of a distinct major crustal block in the southern appalachians the magnetization of 22 granitic and gneissic southern appalachian rock units with estimated cooling ages of 415 250 m y has been determined included are 842 samples from 114 sites within 19 granites 100 sites and 3 gneisses 14 sites located in north carolina south carolina and georgia data for units which cooled to temperatures 20 000 km sup 2 in size a mean paleopole for this group with corrections for maximum tilt estimates exhibits good precision but has a paleosite latitude of approx 10 sup 0 n without tilt correction the paleopole for group b still exhibits an anomalous paleositemore latitude of approx 4 sup 0 n these data indicate that the group b block elberton sparta crustal block lying to the se has an apparent paleosite latitude corresponding to magnetization at a location to the north of the zone containing group a units less

long lived fault zones and their influence on the tectonic development of the southwestern barents sea the southwestern barents sea shows a complicated network of fault complexes and systems with various geometrical and genetic characteristics trend relation to basement reactivation fault plane geometry and regional significance using these parameters a classification of the fault complexes has been made and a correlation to onshore faults has been attempted the area is subdivided into several fault blocks separated by deep seated zones of weakness first and second class fault systems these are reactivated in connection with later mesozoic movements in the area and have acted as foci of strain so leaving the central area of the blocks relatively strain free a third class of fault systems is of local significance and reflects deformation limited to the interior of the fault blocks

archean inheritance in zircon from late paleozoic granites from the avalon zone of southeastern new england an african connection abstract in southeastern new england the narragansett pier granite locally intrudes carboniferous metasedimentary rocks of the narragansett basin and yields a monazite u pb permian emplacement age of 273 2ma zircon from the narragansett pier granite contains a minor but detectable amount of an older inherited component and shows modern loss of lead zircon from the late stage aplitic westerly granite exhibits a more pronounced lead inheritance permitting the inherited component to be identified as late archean such old relict zircon has not been previously recognized in proterozoic to paleozoic igneous rocks in new england and may be restricted to late paleozoic rocks of the avalon zone we suggest that the archean crustal component reflects an african connection in which old archean crust was underplated to the avalon zone microplate in the late paleozoic during collision of gondwanaland with avalonia

syn deformational remanent magnetization of the mount eclipse sandstone central australia summary the palaeomagnetism of the latest devonian early carboniferous mount eclipse sandstone in central australia reveals samples from 16 out of 31 sites having a consistent hightemperature component of natural remanent magnetization site mean directions from the two limbs of the most detailed studied syncline attain their best grouping after 75 per cent of unfolding and further unfolding causes a cross over feature mineralogical studies using microscope and electron microprobe show that this remanance is most likely to be carried by secondary haematite formed by alteration of fe rich minerals during the midcarboniferous deformation four different models are examined to reconstruct the palaeohorizontal for the syn deformational remanence the best estimate of the palaeomagnetic south pole position is lat 33 8 s and long 121 2 e dp 19 2 drn 19 7 close to australia this result indicates a rapid polanvard movement of eastern gondwanaland during the first half of the carboniferous we also suggest that the widespread alice springs orogeny related overprints in central australia were acquired during the beginning of the main phase of deformation in the mid carboniferous

geology of the early devonian oolitic iron ore of the gara djebilet field saharan platform algeria abstract the oolitic iron ore of the gara djebilet field occurs within the early devonian sediments of the tindouf basin algerian sahara particularly in the upper djebilet formation of pragian age three large lenses form three individual deposits extending e w for about 60 km namely gara west gara center and gara east the mineralization is interbedded with argillaceous to sandy sediments and it can be related to a barrier island palaeoenvironment bordered by an inner lagoon or shallow embayment and an epicontinental sea trapped by palaeozoic shoals the oolitic sediments show a mineralogy marked mainly by magnetite hematite goethite maghemite chamosite bavalite siderite apatite and quartz three paragenetic associations present a vertical distribution with a lower non magnetitic ore a magnetitic ore and an upper non magnetitic ore three petrographical facies types have been defined a cemented facies foc a detrital facies fod and a non detrital facies fond chemical data for the whole field show a difference between the lower non magnetitic ore fe 54 6 the magnetitic ore fe 57 8 and the upper non magnetitic ore fe 53 the magnetitic ore which corresponds mainly to the workable ore cutoff grade at 57 has the following composition sio2 4 9 al2o3 4 2 fe2o3 61 43 feo 19 2 and p2o5 1 8 the corresponding calculated economical ore reserves are 985 106t with 57 8 fe regarding the genesis of the oolitic iron ore a southern source is suggested for the iron with deposition taking place in a quiet environment there the ooids developed by an intrasedimentary accretion mechanism around detrital grain within an iron rich mud the gara djebilet field is an important occurrence of the north african palaeozoic ironstone belt extending from the zemmour to libya which also includes ironstones of ordovician silurian and devonian age

the modern geoid and ancient plate boundaries abstract the non hydrostatic geoid is dominated by three large anomalies an area of high gravity potential in the equatorial pacific another stretching from greenland through africa to the southwest indian ocean and a semi continuous low region passing from hudson s bay through siberia to india and on to antarctica none of these three high amplitude greater than 60 m and long wavelength anomalies corresponds to present day plate boundaries however if the modern geoid is plotted over the positions of continents and plate boundaries at 125 ma b p reconstructed relative to hotspots a strong correlation emerges the modern geoidal low corresponds in position to the areas of subduction surrounding the pacific 125 ma ago the geoidal high now centered on africa is entirely contained within ancient pangaea and the equatorial pacific high overlies the location of the spreading centers preserved in the magnetic anomalies of the central pacific the most plausible cause of the large geoidal undulations is lower mantle convection only weakly coupled to plate motions the correspondence between modern geoid and ancient plate boundaries implies either that the coupling was much more intimate in the past or that there is a lag of at least 100 ma in response of the lower mantle to upper mantle conditions

appalachian carboniferous dextral strike slip faults an example from brookneal virginia the northern appalachian dextral fault system of late paleozoic age is also present in the central and southern appalachians an example of a dextral strike slip fault is the 4 km wide brookneal shear zone in the southwest virginia piedmont the shear zone is in part superimposed on the melrose granite where an s c mylonite was produced by dynamic recrystallization of all constituent minerals the arvonia metasedimentary and charlotte belt metavolcanic rocks contain spaced dextral shear bands at a consistent 24 3 to the shear zone boundary a minimum displacement estimate of 17 km was obtained from rotated foliation measurements in the melrose granite the age of movement on the brookneal shear zone has been constrained by isotopic dating to between 324 and 300 ma other faults in the southern appalachians including the nutbush creek and modoc zones show similar ages and relative offsets possible plate tectonic models that could account for the late paleozoic dextral fault system throughout the appalachians include 1 tectonic escape resulting from the collision of a plate with north america to the north of the canadian appalachians 2 postcollision interplate readjustments involving counterclockwise rotation of africa relative to north america and 3 oblique convergence of eastern north america with an oceanic plate moving west

a review of the arcuate structures in the iberian variscides constraints and genetic models abstract in the iberian variscides several first order arcuate structures have been considered in spite of being highly studied their characterization formation mechanisms and even existence is still debatable the main ibero armorican arc iaa is essentially defined by a predominant nw se trend in the iberian branch and an e w trend in the brittany one however in northern spain it presents a 180 rotation sometimes known as the cantabrian arc ca the relation between both arcs is controversial being considered either as a single arc due to one tectonic event or as the result of a polyphasic process according to the last assumption there is a later arcuate structure ca overlapping a previous major one iaa whatever the models they must be able to explain the presence of a variscan sinistral transpression in iberia and a dextral one in armorica and a deformation spanning from the devonian to the upper carboniferous another arcuate structure in continuity with the ca the central iberian arc cia was recently proposed mainly based upon on magnetic anomalies geometry of major folds and ordovician paleocurrents the critical review of the structural stratigraphic and geophysical data supports both the iaa and the ca but as independent structures however the presence of a cia is highly questionable and could not be supported the complex strain pattern of the iaa and the ca could be explained by a devonian carboniferous polyphasic indentation of a gondwana promontory in this model the ca is essentially a thin skinned arc while the iaa has a more complex and longer evolution that has led to a thick skinned first order structure nevertheless both arcs are essentially the result of a lithospheric bending process during the iberian variscides

palaeomagnetism of late precambrian cambrian volcanics and intrusives from the armorican massif france samples of the keratophyre tuffs of treguier 640 12 myr of the upper brioverian series and the microgranite dykes of loguivy 548 24 myr have been collected from the north coast of brittany france the samples were progressively demagnetized with af and predominantly thermal methods blocking temperatures coercivities and acquisition of isothermal remanent magnetization irm indicate that the keratophyre remanence is variably carried in magnetite hematite or occasionally in both after removal of a soft viscous component two stable palaeomagnetic directions were found one in magnetite the other in hematite the characteristic magnetite direction tb 300 580 c is a pre folding primary thermoremanent magnetization trm which after structural correction has a mean declination inclination of 217 9 30 4 the younger hematite component has a mean in situ direction of 320 4 20 3 the microgranite natural remanent magnetization nrm intensity distribution is distinctly bimodal forming high and low 1 6 a m 1 intensity groups upon demagnetization a single stable remanence in magnetite was removed between 300 and 580 c or 20 and 100 mt two characteristic directions were found to be statistically related to the intensity groups at the 99 per cent confidence level low intensity samples have a mean direction of 201 9 2 3 and probably resulted from a late devonian early carboniferous local magnetization high intensity microgranites have a mean direction of 200 50 8 and this remanence is shown to be a primary trm palaeopoles obtained from the two keratophyre magnetizations magnetite 44 7 n 116 4 e hematite 39 5 n 233 6 e as well as the high intensity microgranite remanence 5 8 s 339 9 e show good agreement with similar age poles from the apparent polar wander path for the armorican massif comparison of these data to recent palaeomagnetic data from southern england and wales gives additional evidence to link that region with the armorica plate as proposed by van der voo and hagstrum et al

geometry and kinematics of a major crustal shear zone segment in the appalachians of southern new brunswick in southern new brunswick the kennebecasis fault follows the northern boundary of a crystalline portion of the late precambrian cambrian avalon terrane this low grade crystalline complex forms the basement to a series of carboniferous through triassic basins this complex also contains a major shear zone relic that is largely flat lying but upturned adjacent to the fault and that with it defines the pocologan kennebecasis fault zone the orientation of the main composite foliation s1 and the included mineral stretching lineation l1 indicate that this geometry is a primary feature of the shear zone representing a linked pair of horizontal and vertical detachments bounding an allochthonous unit kinematic indicators show that this allochthon moved parallel to the strike of the north appalachian orogen with top towards the west or west southwest the bounding shear zone is not uniform but consists of a mylonite phyllonite adjacent to the detachment the upturned segment of the shear zone has bee

the key role of fluvial dunes in transport and deposition of sand gravel mixtures a preliminary note abstract sediment transport and deposition in sand gravel bed rivers is shown to depend on dunes the sediment mixture is vertically sorted in avalanches at the lee side of the dunes part of the resulting upward fining sets of the largest dunes that occur during a discharge wave is preserved in the bed furthermore the sediment is entrained and deposited size selectively in the dune troughs which results in an additional upward fining accumulation of lag deposits this deposit is the source for sediment entrained during the next discharge wave which will depend on the relict vertical sorting and on the depth from which it is entrained the entrainment and deposition depth of the sediment depends on the dune trough level below the average bed level and therefore on the dune height thus subsequent discharge waves of decreasing magnitude will leave the upward fining cross bedded sets at depths below the bed surface related to the concurrent dune height this is demonstrated with flume experiments and with new vibrocores collected from the river waal the netherlands

paleomagnetic evidence for crustal and thin skinned rotations in the european hercynides devonian and carboniferous paleomagnetic data from the european hercynides show a coherent pattern in inclination but significant dispersion in declination the declination anomalies with respect to expected declinations for stable europe indicate a strong correlation with the regional changes in the structural trend of the mountain belt detailed analysis of the paleomagnetic and structural data revealed the highest degree of correlation between changes in strike and declination anomalies for external parts of the orogen where thin skinned nappe emplacement has been most prevalent the correlation between changes in strike and declination anomalies from interior parts of the hercynides is less well defined and displays a greater degree of scatter nevertheless the partly secondary character of the arcuate shape can be demonstrated thus the internal hercynides are at least in part a true orocline with secondary bending in the sense of s w carey we infer that the bending of the european hercynides resulted from the combination of multiple deep reaching deformations of the european lithosphere as well as the effects of thin skinned rotations the decreasing degree of rotations toward the crystalline interior of the belt appears to favor a geodynamic model involving indentations and or buttressing effects the indentation of hercynian europe by a microplate or an african promontory during the hercynian orogeny might be one of the principal causes for the secondary bending and the associated nappe rotations

tectonic development of the new madrid rift complex mississippi embayment north america abstract geological and geophysical studies of the new madrid seismic zone have revealed a buried late precambrian rift beneath the upper mississippi embayment area the rift has influenced the tectonics and geologic history of the area since late precambrian time and is presently associated with the contemporary earthquake activity of the new madrid seismic zone the rift formed during late precambrian to earliest cambrian time as a result of continental breakup and has been reactivated by compressional or tensional stresses related to plate tectonic interactions the configuration of the buried rift is interpreted from gravity magnetic seismic refraction seismic reflection and stratigraphic studies the increased mass of the crust in the rift zone which is reflected by regional positive gravity anomalies over the upper mississippi embayment area has resulted in periodic subsidence and control of sedimentation and river drainage in this cratonic region since formation of the rift complex the correlation of the buried rift with contemporary earthquake activity suggests that the earthquakes result from slippage along zones of weakness associated with the ancient rift structures the slippage is due to reactivation of the structure by the contemporary nearly e w regional compressive stress which is the result of plate motions

a review of indian phanerozoic palaeomagnetism implications for the india asia collision abstract an overview is presented of the indian apparent polar wander path apwp for the phanerozoic and in particular for post late palaeozoic times this apwp is compiled on basis of data available at october 1981 from peninsular and extrapeninsular indo pakistan and from dsdp cores from the indian plate one of the more important and newly recognized features of this apwp is a large scale triassic jurassic loop this loop indicates a changeover from a late palaeozoic early mesozoic northwards and counter clockwise rotational movement with greater india reaching moderately low southern latitudes into a southwards and clockwise rotational movement during the early to middle jurassic recognizable likewise in apwp s from other gondwana continents this loop reflects the opening of the neotethys studies of extrapeninsular regions up to and north of the indus tsangpo suture zone have shown wide spread presence of magnetic overprints which delineate two regionally confined age groups younger overprints 20 40 m y predominate in the more external thrust zones older overprints 50 60 m y in contrast are found in the more internal zones both north and south of the indus tsangpo suture zone the latter are interpreted to reflect a late phase of relaxation in the early tertiary collision of greater india with south central asia or off shore island arcs which occurred at equatorial to low northern palaeolatitudes 0 10 n subsequent northwards movement over 2500 3000 km or more and impingement of greater india into southern asia resulted into large scale underthrusting of greater india along the main central thrust beneath southern tibet and to clockwise rotation of thrust units in the western himalaya a discrepancy between indian palaeomagnetic data and results available todate from southern tibet is discussed

shear wave splitting around the northern atlantic frozen pangaean lithospheric anisotropy abstract although the number of teleseismic shear wave splitting measurements has considerably increased world wide during the last decade there is no consensus on a unique and universal interpretation of these data splitting might primarily originate in the lithospheric and or asthenospheric mantle but the technique has no vertical resolution and therefore leaves this question of anisotropy location unresolved generally the consequences of the two possibilities are used to infer which is more likely if splitting occurs in the lithosphere the splitting parameters the orientation of the fast split shear wave o and the delay time t should be related to frozen or active deformation on the other hand if the splitting occurs in the asthenosphere the observed splitting parameters should be related to the present day flow induced by the differential motion between the tectonic plates and the underlying mantle the aim of this paper is to test these hypotheses against shear wave splitting observations from western europe and the eastern u s indeed except in a few places splitting on either side of the atlantic on hercynian caledonian or grenvillian structures do not appear to have been deeply and pervasively affected by the opening of this ocean this provides us the opportunity to place these results in the pangaean reference frame of the hercynian caledonian belt before the opening of the atlantic in many places the close parallelism between lithospheric structure and the absolute plate motion apm impedes a reliable identification of the origin of the anisotropy especially an asthenospheric flow channelled around the deeply rooted north american craton may be compatible with the large scale anisotropy pattern in the eastern u s despite this ambiguity fast polarization directions o observed on or near some major lithospheric structures correlate better with the trend of the local tectonic structures than with the expected asthenospheric flow therefore we suggest that these lithospheric structures developed before the opening of the atlantic remain frozen since hercynian caledonian or grenvillian times and are responsible for the observed splitting at these places

paleomagnetic evidence for post devonian displacement of the avalon platform newfoundland the possibility that the avalon platform where the avalonian lithotectonic belt is best developed was involved in late paleozoic displacement was tested by paleomagnetic study of red sandstones of the upper devonian terrenceville formation of eastern newfoundland two magnetization directions were identified by thermal demagnetization analysis of 60 oriented samples from 10 sites a high blocking temperature thermally discrete a component of normal and reversed polarity and an intermediate blocking temperature thermally distributed b component of reversed polarity the b component d 185 9 i 3 3 a95 7 2 for n 8 sites is interpreted as a postfolding secondary magnetization and gives a paleomagnetic pole position latitude 43 6 n longitude 117 1 e near early to late permian paleopoles for north america the a component d 181 6 i 28 0 a95 10 1 for n 9 sites is interpreted as the characteristic magnetization possibly dating from near the time of deposition of the terrence ville formation the corresponding paleomagnetic pole position latitude 27 4 n longitude 123 5 e falls within a group of late devonian early carboniferous paleopoles obtained from the acadia displaced terrain encompassing the coastal areas of new england and the canadian maritimes which form another part of the avalonian belt these paleopoles are systematically offset by 15 to 20 in latitude from coeval pole positions obtained from cratonic north america thus the avalonian belt of the northern appalachians which is thought to represent a remnant of a precambrian and early paleozoic microcontinent on tectonostratigraphic considerations appears to correspond to a late paleozoic displaced terrain on the basis of paleomagnetic evidence

alleghanian deformation in the eastern gaspe peninsula of quebec canada juxtaposition of the mississippian risti gouche and cannes de roches basins which are subbasins of the composite late paleozoic maritimes basin occurred through dextral movement along the north west striking percefault system in the east ern gaspepeninsula of quebec the north west striking faults are truncated by small north northwest striking dextral strike slip faults which probably developed as region al stress gradually rotated clockwise from north northwest south southeast to north east southwest this study provides the first evidence in eastern quebec for significant post acadian block displacement other than normal faulting and indicates that al leghanian deformation extended much far ther north than previously thought iden tification of these structures formed during the alleghanian orogeny but more than 1000 km away from areas of peak allegh anian metamorphism in the southeastern united states underlines the far reaching effects of continental collisions it also casts doubt on the age attribution of brittle strike slip faults elsewhere in the gaspe peninsula away from mississippian expo sures such brittle faults were previously associated with late stages of the acadian orogeny but could in fact be considerably younger

beaches downcoast of harbours in bays abstract in spite of beach berms being removed during each storm sequence the waterline may be retained constant either by a constant supply of littoral drift or static equilibrium bays being formed between headlands the construction of salients behind offshore breakwaters may be at the expense of the adjoining coast which resembles the ubiquitous bay shapes formed between headlands that can be either in dynamic or static equilibrium this is the same silting situation in the lee of breakwaters extending from the coast where beach erosion results downcoast ports constructed upcoast of a bay in dynamic equilibrium can have their breakwaters so located that the bay can become statically stable in the case of the bay being already in static equilibrium breakwater extension often causes massive accretion in its lee and concomitant erosion further downcoast thus demanding prodigious expense for beach protection installations appropriate procedures are now suggested to minimise this undesirable effect of beach erosion associated with the construction and extension of breakwaters to ports upcoast of a bay

palaeo stress fields in the variscan foreland during the carboniferous from microstructural analysis in the british isles abstract north of the variscan front the carboniferous series of the british isles is affected by mainly n s trending folds which are almost perpendicular to this e w oriented front flat and unconformable overlying permian strata demonstrate a variscan age for the deformation a microtectonic survey made in dinantian and to a lesser extent namurian calcareous layers has revealed two successive events according to chronological criteria the first event maximum stress e w trending led to the formation of n s folds with local reorientation in the vicinity of major pre existing faults this compression may have been active since the namurian it pre dates a second compressional event orientated n s which is related to the final emplacement of the variscan nappes

paleomagnetism and the motion of large and small plates the focus of paleomagnetic research during past decades has varied greatly the first generation in paleomagnetism might be defined as beginning with the pioneering studies aimed at discovering whether the geomagnetic field has been a reliable reference frame for measuring and timing continental displacements an enormous effort followed in the form of individual paleomagnetic studies of cratonic rocks culminating with the construction of apw apparent polar wander paths for the continents which could be used to test paleogeographic reconstructions coupled with parallel research in marine geophysics and geology the refined apwp which result from this effort have helped to develop a reasonable first order history of cenozoic mesozoic paleogeography for the major plates

the alleghanian southern appalachian piedmont a transpressional model alleghanian dextral transpression produced multiple strike slip shear zones forming a contractional mega duplex in the central and southern appalachian piedmont structural upwelling along the zones is identifiable as crustal arching on seismic reflection profiles that roughly corresponds to the piedmont gravity high the structural upwelling coincides both temporally and spatially with areas of peak alleghanian plutonism and metamorphism the compositionally bimodal plutons generally occur in or around the fault zones and are isotopically primitive geobarometry of cognate xenocryst inclusions of coexisting plagioclase and pyroxene from a granitoid indicates 8 11 kbar or 31 to 42 5 km depth to proposed source region this depth roughly corresponds to the pre erosional location of multiple reflections beneath the arches on seismic profiles that are interpreted as the moho the granitoids are proposed to have formed by partial melting of the lowermost crust through heat from mafic intrusions and decompression resulting from crustal arching beneath the strike slip faults the granitoids ascended along the strike slip faults and were emplaced in or near them the crustal arching and melting processes appear to be important mechanisms in the development of strike slip orogens

the palaeobiogeographic significance of lower carboniferous crustaceans ostracodes and peracarids from western newfoundland and central nova scotia canada abstract lower carboniferous sediments of the maritime basin of eastern canada were deposited in a predominantly fluvial environment subjected to transgressive marine episodes a dominantly shallow marine peracarid and ostracode fauna the latter consisting mostly of paraparchitaceans palaeocopids and bairdiaceans has been recovered from sediments in the area the maritime basin is considered to have been a tectonically active epicontinental extension of the northern hercynian ocean its lower carboniferous crustacean fauna shows a strong affinity to contemporaneous western european and russian faunas the high degree of similarity exhibited by these faunas and also the lack of similarity to contemporaneous north american and north african faunas are explained in terms of a circulation model for the hercynian ocean and adjacent areas the circulation model is based upon the application of the physical principles that define the behaviour of oceanic surface waters to a palaeogeographic reconstruction of the visean northern hercynian ocean and surrounding regions

pre mesozoic paleomagnetism and plate tectonics although the arguments perhaps did not convince everyone at the time the paleomagnetic polar wander paths for europe and north america plotted by runcom 1956 certainly convinced me as a young graduate student that continental drift as we called it in those pre plate tectonic days deserved serious attention then throughout the 1960s the geoscience world seemed busy documenting and refining the models of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics that governed the opening of today s oceans as the number of publications espousing plate tectonics seemed to grow exponentially an often tacit assumption was that the continental breakup was a unique event and that pangea was a quasi primordial continental configuration ahead of his time however j tuzo wilson 1966 queried in a now classical paper did the atlantic close and then re open the 1973 penrose conference in vail colorado on pre mesozoic plate tectonics dewey spall 1975 showed that by then many earth scientists were preoccupied with proving that the tacit assumption was wrong and that wilson was right but compared to mesozoic and later plate tectonics the task of quantifying pre mesozoic continental movements is much more difficult since there are no seafloor magnetic anomalies to work with and much of the potential evidence e g ophiolites diagnostic supracrustal sequences high pressure low temperature metamorphic rocks has been destroyed by that ultimate plate tectonic process the continent continent collision and by sub sequent uplift and erosion nevertheless a multitude of observations facts interpretations reinterpretations proposals and hypotheses can now be found in the literature for virtually any pre mesozoic period and any geographic

panafrican to hercynian deformations in the mauritanides and tectonic significance of gravity anomalies abstract the mauritanides rokelides chain which extends along the western margin of the west african craton is characterized by roughly northward structural trends and at least for the northern two thirds eastward thrusting of large amplitude the style and timing of deformation change from south to north along the chain in sierra leone guinea and southeastern senegal the rokelides the main event is attributed to the panafrican orogeny apparently with only limited thrusting the belt of gravity highs associated with that part of the orogen is interpreted as a west dipping suture zone in northeastern senegal and central mauritania this panafrican event is masked by caledonian and hercynian events which resulted in strong folding and far travelled thrusting the positive gravity anomaly closely parallel to the belt records the trace of the collision of two continental blocks a taconian event in northern mauritania and south morocco the age of emplacement of large nappes is hercynian and their geodynamic interpretation requires that a trench or ocean has closed farther west presumably beneath the eastern u s atlantic coastal plain

paleomagnetism of the hervey group central new south wales and its tectonic implications paleomagnetic work on the hervey group in southeast australia reveals a predeformational magnetization as suggested by the retention of a predeformational compaction produced magnetic fabric and the effect of deformation on both the magnetic fabric and the direction of the magnetic remanence in cleaved rocks the formation mean direction d 29 2 i 19 3 with 95 15 5 gives a latest devonian early carboniferous palaeomagnetic pole at 54 4 s 24 1 e with dp 8 4 dm 16 2 comparing this pole with existing poles from australia and north america it is suggested that 1 the lachlan fold belt of southeast australia has been part of cratonic australia since at least the late devonian and consequently the late palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data from the lfb may be applied to the whole of gondwanaland 2 cratonic australia and the new england fold belt were all in an equatorial position during the early carboniferous 3 there was probably a rapid anticlockwise rotation of gondwanaland during the late devonian around an axis close to australia 4 a v shaped ocean existed between laurussia and the northern margin of western gondwanaland during the late devonian early carboniferous the appalachian hercynian orogenic belt is probably the result of the closure of this ocean

a kinematic model for the collision and complete suturing between gondwanaland and laurussia in the carboniferous maps of middle to late carboniferous strike slip faults in western europe northern africa and eastern north america have been compiled from geological gravity and magnetic onshore and offshore data a large majority of these faults can be interpreted in terms of a logical syn to post collisional pattern superimposed on the initial suture between the african i e gondwana and north american european laurussian continental margins the pre collision positions of the major continents are derived from paleomagnetic data and when combined with the general distribution of the strike slip faults lead to a kinematic model of the complex middle late carboniferous collision in this model the west african precambrian craton acted as a rigid promontory or die with respect to the partially rigid plastic zones between it and the large north american craton these partially rigid plastic zones comprise the external appalachian and canadian maritime margins the mauritanide and hercynian margins of north

plate motions and the geomagnetic field ii jurassic to tertiary summary the analysis of the time averaged geomagnetic field is extended back to 200ma palaeomagnetic poles from the major plates have been carefully selected from recent compilations of reliable results for each region these were returned with their corresponding sampling sites to their locations at the estimated dates of magnetization in a fixed hotspots framework the corrected results were then grouped into 20ma windows at intervals of 10ma representing the past 100ma and 40ma windows at 30ma intervals for the more sparse 100 200ma data global means and fisher statistics were calculated for each window having included the axial quadrupole in the calculation the value of this coefficient which gave the maximum value for the fisher precision parameter tightest grouping of poles was taken as representative of each interval the results indicate that a small axial quadrupole of the same sign as the axial dipole may have persisted throughout the cenozoic this is equivalent to a northward offset axial dipole field far sided effect during the late cretaceous this component appears to have changed sign with respect to the dipole negative values seem to have obtained throughout the cretaceous long normal polarity interval corresponding to a southward offset dipole near sided effect the data distribution is inadequate for the resolution of the quadrupole at earlier times and zero values cannot be discounted little relative motion is implied between the hotspots and the geomagnetic axis for the past 90 ma the global mean polar path curving around the predicted fixed hotspots pole at a distance of typically 5 latitude with little sign of rapid tertiary polar wander as implied by studies of pacific data alone between 100 and 200 ma however there is a clear difference between the two reference frames amounting to 17 19 in the jurassic this may reflect motion of the mantle relative to the geomagnetic axis but may also include errors due to inaccurate determination of hotspot tracks and inter hotspot motion

a tectonic model for the late paleozoic of southeastern new england hornblende and biotite sup 40 ar sup 39 ar age spectra from rocks in south central connecticut help define a permian triassic cooling curve for the area together with petrologic and structural information a time temperature pressure strain path is established similar data for the narragansett basin in rhode island and massachusetts allow correlation of the late paleozoic histories of the two areas together these data suggest that in the late paleozoic south central new england was part of a fold thrust belt and the narragansett basin was a retroarc foreland basin nw se compression during the final assembly of pangaea resulted in se directed thrusting causing the development of clastic wedges in adjacent rhode island and massachusetts in the late carboniferous early permian a clockwise rotation of this deformation from nw to nne led to northward underthrusting and concomitant uplift of both eastern connecticut and rhode island in the permian and triassic

late hercynian extensional and transcurrent tectonics in central iberia abstract at the end of the hercynian orogeny the central iberian crust which had been thickened by nappe tectonics and heated weakened overthickened by massive granitic intrusions was subjected to extensional tectonics through lithospherescale low angle detachment systems thus releasing the gravitational potential inherent in thickened crust these detachment faults evolved by tectonic denudation isostatic rebound and upward arching to define an extensionaltardi hercynian eth basin and range type province with upper plate listric high angle normal faults delimiting tilted blocks and asymmetric troughs occasionally filled with permian sediments and volcanics n s oriented transfer faults and synform antiform pairs with denuded metamorphic core complexes in the antiforms and local compressional features in the synforms postdating the gravitational collapse of the thickened crust the residual late hercynian e w oriented compressional stresses triggered a ductile transcurrent tardi hercynian dtth event this is expressed by two major shear zones and by the extrusion and deformation of porphyry dyke swarms along the previously thinned and weakened antiformal trends finally interplate stresses related to a continental scale shear zone gave rise to a brittle transcurrent tardi hercynian btth event with different sets of brittle faults indicating a n s oriented compression the present geological features are the result of these events overprinted by the alpine reactivation of the entire complex

alleghanian paleostress reconstruction in the northern appalachians intraplate deformation between laurentia and gondwana a numerical paleostress tensor analysis using striated fault planes has been conducted in the quebec reentrant of the northern appalachians to characterize the stress field of late paleozoic deformations three directions of maximum compressional stress axes s1 have been found and correlated to 1 an early north northwest south southeast compression 2 a north northeast south southwest compression and 3 a late west northwest east southeast compression fault populations associated with these stress regimes are present in all tectonic zones of the quebec and northern new brunswick appalachians directions of 1 axes determined in the northern appalachians resemble in orientation and in relative chronology layer parallel shortening fabrics and joint patterns found in the appalachian foreland of the central appalachians the paleostress regimes are interpreted as the record of intraplate deformation related to the indentation of gondwana into laurentia during the late paleozoic alleghanian orogeny

paleomagnetism of permian sedimentary rocks from tanzania and the permian paleogeography of pangea abstract we report new paleomagnetic results from karoo permian rocks in tanzania k1 and k3 redbeds and k5 siltstones and limestones from the songwe kiwira basin ndeke redbeds from the mikumi basin and group viii redbeds from the nyakatitu basin were sampled and thermally demagnetized palynologic data and lithologic correlations suggest that the k1 redbeds are lower permian and that the k3 ndeke and group viii redbeds as well as the k5 siltstones and limestones are upper permian stable magnetic directions were obtained from the k3 ndeke and group viii redbeds yielding an upper permain pole at 26 n 267 e characteristic remanence directions were also obtained from the k5 siltstones and limestones however because these directions define a pole 66 n 269 e that is very close to the upper cretaceous pole for africa and significantly different from the upper permian redbed poles these rocks may have been remagnetized the k1 redbeds did not yield stable results using our new results together with published permian poles for africa and the other gondwanan continents we revise the mean lower and upper permian poles for africa west gondwana and gondwana and investigate whether or not these revised poles can discriminate between the various pangea reconstructions proposed for the permian with any greater certainty than previous unrevised mean poles when compared to the mean lower and upper permian poles for laurussia we find that our revised west gondwanan and gondwanan poles do not necessarily provide stronger support for any particular pangea reconstruction than the previous poles therefore even though this study improves the paleomagnetic data base for gondwana for the permian it is not clear that the combination of our results with other paleomagnetic data from the gondwanan continents yields significant new insights about the permian configuration of pangea as suggested previously strong non dipole fields during the permian may provide an explanation for why it is not easy to discriminate with certainty between the various permain pangea reconstructions even with new paleomagnetic results