Lithoprobe: new perspectives on crustal evolution

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
• Main Authors: Clowes, R. M., Cook, F A., Green, A. G., Keen, C. E., Ludden, J. N., Percival, J. A., Quinlan, G. M., West, G. F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1992
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e92-145; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e92-145

Lithoprobe is Canada's national, collaborative, multidisciplinary earth science research program directed toward an enhanced understanding of how the North American continent evolved. Research in its eight transects or study areas, which span the country from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and geological time from 4 Ga to the present, is spearheaded by seismic reflection surveys. These, combined with many other studies, are providing new insight into the varied tectonic processes that have been active in forming the continent. Results from the Southern Cordillera transect show that Mesozoic crustal growth occurred in the central and eastern Cordillera by the accretion and amalgamation of exotic terranes, the collision of which resulted in the generation of crustal-scale antiforms and duplexes. After the principal periods of compression, this area was affected by a major episode of extension that led to the unroofing of the metamorphic core complexes. Farther to the west, past and present subduction processes have eroded the lower lithosphere of accreted terranes and left underplated sediments and oceanic lithosphere. The Lithoprobe East transect, covering the Paleozoic Newfoundland Appalachians and Mesozoic rifted Atlantic margin, reveals three lower crustal blocks, each with distinctive reflection signatures on marine seismic data. Structures of the geologically established tectono-stratigraphic domains, imaged clearly by new onshore reflection data, sole at upper crustal to mid-crustal levels, suggesting that much of the surface stratigraphy is allochthonous to the lower crustal blocks. At the ocean–continent transition, interpretations suggest underplating of thinned continental crust by basaltic melt during the rifting process.In Lake Superior, data from the Great Lakes International Multidisciplinary Program on Crustal Evolution (GLIMPCE) transect reveal the complex structures of the late Middle Proterozoic Keweenawan rift, which is up to 35 km deep, that almost split North America. The GLIMPCE data in ...