The Noggin Cove Formation: a Middle Ordovician back-arc basin deposit in northeastern Newfoundland

The Noggin Cove Formation is the largest volcanic unit of the eastern Exploits Subzone. It is approximately 1 km thick and consists mainly of stratified mafic volcaniclastic rocks with subordinate pillowed basalt and Mack shale. Stratigraphic relationships and regional correlations indicate a Middle...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atlantic Geology
Main Authors: Johnston, D. H., Williams, H., Currie, K. L.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Atlantic Geoscience Society 1994
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Online Access:https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/ag/article/view/2128
Description
Summary:The Noggin Cove Formation is the largest volcanic unit of the eastern Exploits Subzone. It is approximately 1 km thick and consists mainly of stratified mafic volcaniclastic rocks with subordinate pillowed basalt and Mack shale. Stratigraphic relationships and regional correlations indicate a Middle Ordovician age. The Carmanville Mélange and the distinctive Woody Island formation, with coticule layers and olistostromes, occur along the northern margin of the Noggin Cove Formation, and the formation is faulted against siltstone and shale of the Davidsvilte Group along its southern margin. The Noggin Cove Formation underwent three periods of deformation: (1) D1, early recumbent F11 folding; (2) D2 northeast-trending tight to isoclinal F2 folding with pervasive axial planar cleavage (S2); and (3) D3, open east-plunging F3 folding of the regional S2 cleavage. Regional greenschist facies metamorphism was locally followed by contact mctamor-phism related to intrusion of the Siluro-Devonian Frederickton, Rocky Bay and Aspen Cove plutons. Facies distribution, ubiquitous vesicular clasts, and the volume of monomictic volcaniclastic rocks imply that the Noggin Cove Formation is an erosional marine volcaniclastic apron built up to the south of a shallow marine to subaerial evolving volcanic source. Back-arc geochemical affinities, coupled with lithology and stratigraphy, indicate a back-arc basin paleotectonic setting. RÉSUMÉ La formation de Noggin Cove est l'unité volcanique la plus importante de la sous-zone orientate d'Exploits. Elle a environ 1 km d'epaisseur et est principalement constitutée de roches volcanoclastiques mafiques à l'intérieur d'amp élite et de basalte en coussinets sous-jacents. Les rapports stratigraphiques et les corrélations régionales révèlent qu'elle remonteà l'Ordovicien moyen. Le Mélange Carmanville et la formation caractéristique de Woody Island, pourvus de ...