Acadian orogen Which Acadian orogen
- Queens Coll., Flushing, NY (United States)
The Acadian orogeny is widely viewed as the climactic event in much of the Northern Appalachians, resulting from the closing of one or more ocean basins and the accretion of the Avalonian continent to ancestral North America. Unconformities have traditionally dated the Acadian orogeny as Middle Devonian in the east and Late Middle to Late Devonian in the western part of the orogen. The recent recognition that several post-Acadian'' plutons are actually Late Silurian suggests that the tectonic models are too simplistic; that accretion previously attributed to a Devonian (Acadian) event may have been a two-stage process: Late Silurian (Salinic ) and Acadian sensu stricto; that orogenic activity may have been continuous from Taconian through Acadian'' times. Differences between the records of the Taconic (Ordovician) and Acadian orogenies suggest different plate interactions: near-orthogonal subduction for the former vs transcurrent faulting for the latter as the dominant mechanisms. Distribution of Salinic'' unconformities across the Northern Appalachian orogen in Maine suggests that accretion of Avalon may have been completed by that Silurian event, but faunal provincialities displayed by fossils as young as Early Devonian in terranes bordering the Fredericton Trough argue for later (Devonian) accretion. A further complication is the imprecise knowledge of the extent to which post-Devonian tectonism is responsible for the current terrane configuration in the Northern Appalachians. Alleghenian folding and thrusting is well-established in some areas where post-Acadian (Carboniferous) strata are present, and is now being documented in older rocks in eastern Maine as well: transcurrent faulting as young as post-Mesozoic( ) along the Norumbega Fault Zone; east-directed thrusting involving the Early Devonian Center Pond pluton.
- OSTI ID:
- 5505728
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9303211-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 25:2; Conference: 28. annual Geological Society of America (GSA) Northeastern Section meeting, Burlington, VT (United States), 22-24 Mar 1993; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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