Understanding the tectonic evolution of the West Orphan Basin, offshore Canada, and the conjugate Rockall Basin, offshore Ireland, using a seismic megatransect

• Main Author: MacMahon, Heide M.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2019
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/13636/; https://research.library.mun.ca/13636/1/thesis.pdf

The Orphan Basin, offshore Newfoundland, Canada, is approximately conjugate to the rifted margin basins on the Irish Atlantic margin. At the onset of seafloor spreading, plate reconstructions, based solely on oceanic magnetic anomalies, show the Rockall Basin, west of Ireland, forming a continuous Mesozoic basin with the West Orphan Basin. Here, the nature of this potentially continuous basin is examined through the development of a Newfoundland-Ireland conjugate basins model. 2D and 3D reconstructions of the West Orphan and Rockall basins yielded the thickness of the post-rift and syn-rift sedimentary packages, as well as the pre-rift crust. A discrepancy inspired additional analysis of the East Orphan Basin to aid in the reconstruction of the continuous Mesozoic basins. Based on the results of the reconstruction of the East Orphan Basin, it is possible that the Rockall Basin was originally conjugate to, and continuous with, the East Orphan Basin.