Electromagnetic sounding and crustal electrical conductivity in the region of the Wopmay Orogen, Northwest Territories, Canada

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Main Authors: Camfield, P. A., Gupta, J. C., Jones, A. G., Kurtz, R. D., Krentz, D. H., Ostrowski, J. A., Craven, J. A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1989
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Northwest Territories; Canada
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e89-203; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e89-203

Temporal variations of the three components of the geomagnetic field were recorded at eight sites along a 240 km profile across the Early Proterozoic Wopmay Orogen. After an empirical separation of these data into normal and anomalous parts, horizontal-to-vertical-field transfer functions in the period range 40–1200 s display evidence for a minor anomaly spatially located near the allochthonous shelf margin at the eastern edge of the Hepburn Batholith. The observations can be partially simulated by a two-dimensional 20 ? m body (30 km wide, 2 km thick) embedded in the surface of a very resistive layered Earth model derived from inversion of magnetotelluric sounding data at a central station. The body correlates spatially with metamorphosed graphitic pelites of the Odjick Formation (Epworth Group), a unit of deep-water facies interpreted as continental slope–rise deposits. Laboratory measurements on samples of the pelite yielded resistivity values of the order of 10 4 ?∙m, so the enhanced conductivity of the body is more likely caused by water filling cracks associated with the pelites' well-developed cleavage and schistosity, rather than by the graphite. A scalar audiomagnetotelluric survey across the Wopmay fault zone, a prominent structure that bisects the orogen, gave results very much distorted by three-dimensional effects. The electric-polarization apparent resistivities of these data indicate a shallow conductor 2 km east of the fault scarp, 1–2 km wide. Models of the feature suggest that its vertical extent is at least 1–2 km.