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Seismic delineation of upthrust Archaean crust in Kapuskasing, Northern Ontario

Nature volume 335, pages 711–713 (1988)Cite this article

Abstract

The Kapuskasing structure (Fig. 1) is a 500-km-long, high-grade metamorphic zone which cuts obliquely across the predominantly east–west structural grain of the Superior Province of the Canadian shield. Results from surface geological mapping and gravity profile analysis suggest that the structure is a partial cross-section of Archaean crust exposed by thrust faulting along the Ivanhoe Lake cataclastic zone during the early Proterozoic1,2. Similar exposures of the crust have been observed elsewhere3,4, but no seismic investigation has been conducted over a contiguous, exposed cross-section of Archaean crust. Here we report results from a seismic refraction profile across the Kapuskasing structural zone, carried out to investigate the deep structure of this greenstone–gneiss belt. Modelling of travel-times and amplitudes yields a high-velocity anomaly of 6.6–6.7 km s−1 extending from 20 km depth to close to the surface under the Kapuskasing zone, with a suggested dip of 15±2° to the west. This anomaly is in agreement with a structure comprising upthrusting middle to lower crust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1W5, Canada

    A. V. Boland & R. M. Ellis

  2. Geophysics Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7, Canada

    D. J. Northey & G. F. West

  3. Geological Survey of Canada, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0Y3, Canada

    A. G. Green, D. A. Forsyth, P. Morel-à-I'Huissier, G. G. R. Buchbinder, I. Asudeh & R. A. W. Haddon

  4. Department of Geophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada

    R. F. Mereu

  5. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    R. P. Meyer

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Boland, A., Ellis, R., Northey, D. et al. Seismic delineation of upthrust Archaean crust in Kapuskasing, Northern Ontario. Nature 335, 711–713 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/335711a0

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