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Haworth, R.T. and Keen, C.E., 1979. The Canadian Atlantic margin: a passive continental margin encompassing an active past. In: C.E. Keen (Editor), Crustal Properties across Passive Margins. Tectonophysics, 59: 83–126. The continental margins of Atlantic Canada described in this paper show the effects of plate tectonic motions since Precambrian time and thus represent an ideal natural laboratory for geophysical studies and comparisons of ancient and modern margins. The Grenville Province shows vestiges of Helikian sedimentation on a pre-existing continental block beneath which there may have been southeastward late-Helikian subduction resulting in collision between the Grenville block and the continental block comprised of the older shield provinces to the north. The Grenville block was subsequently split in Hadrynian time along an irregular line so that the southeastern edge of the Grenville exhibited a series of promontories and re-entrants similar to those seen at the present Atlantic continental margin of North America. That margin, which had a passive margin history perhaps comparable with that of the present Atlantic margin, was separated by the Iapetus ocean from the Avalon zone whose Precambrian volcanism has been attributed both to that associated with an island arc and with intra-cratonic rifting. However, the Iapetus ocean appears to have been subducted in early Paleozoic time with a southeastward dip beneath the Avalon zone, leaving exposures of oceanic rocks in place as in Notre Dame Bay, or transported onto Grenville basement as at Bay of Islands. Plate motions proposed for Devonian and Carboniferous time are numerous, but resulted in the welding of the Meguma block to the Avalon zone of New Brunswick and northern Nova Scotia, extensive faulting within Atlantic Canada which can be correlated with contemporaneous European faulting, and extensive terrestrial sedimentation within the fault zones. Graben formation, continental sedimentation and basaltic intrusion in the Triassic represent the tensional prelude to the Jurassic opening of the present Atlantic Ocean. This Jurassic opening produced a rifted margin adjacent to Nova Scotia and a transform margin along the southern Grand Banks. The width of the ocean—continent transition across the transform margin (approx. 50 km) is narrower than for the rifted margin (approx. 100 km). The eastern part of the transform margin is associated with a complex Cretaceous (?) volcanic province of seamounts and basement ridges showing evidence of subsidence. The western portion of the transform margin is non-volcanic, adjacent to which lies the 350 km wide Quiet Magnetic Zone floored by oceanic crust. Development of the margin east of Newfoundland was more complicated with continental fragments separated from the shelf by deep water basins underlain by foundered and atypically thin continental crust. Although thin, the crust appears unmodified, the similarities between the crustal sections of the narrow Flemish Pass and the wide Orphan Basin suggesting that the thinning is not simply due to stretching. The Newfoundland Basin shows evidence for two-stage rifting between the Grand Banks and Iberia with both lateral separation and rotation of Spain, leaving a wide zone of transitional crust in the south. The overall pattern of variations in crustal section for the margin east of Newfoundland is comparable with that of the British margin against which it is located on paleogeographical reconstructions. The major sedimentary unconformities on the shelves (such as the Early Cretaceous unconformity on the Grand Banks) reflect uplift accompanying rifting. Tracing of the sedimentary horizons across the shelf edge is complicated by paleocontinental slopes, which separate miogeocline and eugeocline depositional environments. The subsidence of the rifted margins is primarily due to cooling of the lithosphere and to sediment loading. The subsidence due to cooling has been shown to vary linearly with (time)1/2, similar to the depth—age behaviour of oceanic crust. The consequent thermal history of the sediments is favourable for hydrocarbon generation where other factors do not preclude it. |
