Publication 85
Magnetotelluric and teleseismic study across the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, Canadian Shield:
A Neoarchean mantle suture?
Jones, A.G., D. Snyder, S. Hanmer, I. Asudeh, D. White, D. Eaton and G. Clarke
Abstract
The Snowbird tectonic zone (STZ) is a fundamental boundary within Canada’s Western Churchill Province,
one of the world’s largest yet poorly-known fragments of Archean crust. Geophysical data from a collocated
magnetotelluric and teleseismic transect across the northeastern segment of the STZ provides an image of
its subsurface geometry and indicate that it may have been previously mislocated. The model suggests that
(1) the STZ has played a major role in the Neoarchean assembly and Paleoproterozoic reworking of the western
Canadian Shield, (2) it was reactivated in a manner comparable to other crustal-scale features such as the
Kapuskasing zone of the Superior Province, Canada, and the Redbank thrust of the Arunta block, central Australia,
and (3) it juxtaposes mantle blocks with contrasting geophysical properties, revealing a lithosphere-scale
overlap of the leading edges of the Rae and Hearne domains. Thus, the STZ records plate interactions in the
Neoarchean comparable in scale with that of modern orogenic belts.
Source
Geophysical Research Letters, 29 (17), 10-1 - 10-4, doi: 10.1029/2002GL015359, 2002.
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Alan G Jones / 10 June 2004 /
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