Abstract
New deep seismological data from Ellesmere Island and the adjacent Arctic continental margin provide new information about the crustal structure of the region. These data were not available for previous regional crustal models. This paper combines and redisplays previously published results – a gravity-derived Moho map and seismological results –to produce new maps of the Moho depth, the depth to basement and the crystalline crustal thickness of Ellesmere Island and contiguous parts of the Arctic Ocean, Greenland and Axel Heiberg Island. Northern Ellesmere Island is underlain by a thick crustal block (Moho at 41 km, c. 35 km crust). This block is separated from the Canada–Greenland craton in the south by a WSW–ENE-trending channel of thinned crystalline crust (Moho at 30–35 km, <20 km thick crust), which is overlain by a thick succession of metasedimentary and younger sedimentary rocks (15–20 km). The Sverdrup Basin in the west and the Lincoln Sea in the east interrupt the crustal architecture of central Ellesmere Island, which is interpreted to be more representative of its initial post-Ellesmerian Orogen structure, but with a later Sverdrup Basin and Eurekan overprint.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 19-32 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Geological Society Special Publications |
| Volume | 460 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 12 Jun 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Pease, V. & Coakley, B. (eds) 2018. Circum-Arctic Lithosphere EvolutionThe paper was motivated and developed under the
umbrella of the project Circum Arctic Lithospheric Evolution
(CALE). Thanks are given to the project leaders and
all active participants. The paper was produced during a
postdoctoral research fellowship of C. Schiffer at Durham
University funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. The comments
of two anonymous reviewers are much appreciated
and have led to a number of important clarifications to
our results and interpretations.