The Eurekan orogeny was a Phanerozoic mountain building event that affected the eastern portion of the Arctic Archipelago and, to a lesser extent, northern Greenland. [1] Deformation initiated in the Late Cretaceous, during which time the Sverdrup Basin began to fragment and fold in response to the counterclockwise rotation of Greenland, caused by seafloor spreading in the Canadian Arctic Rift System. [2] [3] Isostatic uplift was most pronounced in the Grantland Mountains and Victoria and Albert Mountains on Ellesmere Island and in the Princess Margaret Range on Axel Heiberg Island, as evidenced by the current physiography. [4] Compression in a broad zone on Ellesmere Island resulted in the formation of the Eurekan Fold Belt. [2] [5]
The Eurekan orogeny came to an end when seafloor spreading in the Labrador Sea ceased about 33 million years ago during the Oligocene epoch. [6] Erosion of the orogenic mountains followed, resulting in the deposition of undeformed sediment above the eroded remnants of deformed rock. At least some of the coarse clastic sediments in the Beaufort Formation were derived from the Grantland Mountains and Princess Margaret Range, suggesting that these ranges had higher elevations during the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene times. [4]
Orogeny is a mountain building process that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An orogenic belt or orogen develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted to form one or more mountain ranges. This involves a series of geological processes collectively called orogenesis. These include both structural deformation of existing continental crust and the creation of new continental crust through volcanism. Magma rising in the orogen carries less dense material upwards while leaving more dense material behind, resulting in compositional differentiation of Earth's lithosphere. A synorogenic process or event is one that occurs during an orogeny.
The Acadian orogeny is a long-lasting mountain building event which began in the Middle Devonian, reaching a climax in the early Late Devonian. It was active for approximately 50 million years, beginning roughly around 375 million years ago, with deformational, plutonic, and metamorphic events extending into the Early Mississippian. The Acadian orogeny is the third of the four orogenies that formed the Appalachian orogen and subsequent basin. The preceding orogenies consisted of the Potomac and Taconic orogeny, which followed a rift/drift stage in the Late Neoproterozoic. The Acadian orogeny involved the collision of a series of Avalonian continental fragments with the Laurasian continent. Geographically, the Acadian orogeny extended from the Canadian Maritime provinces migrating in a southwesterly direction toward Alabama. However, the Northern Appalachian region, from New England northeastward into Gaspé region of Canada, was the most greatly affected region by the collision.
The Antler orogeny was a tectonic event that began in the early Late Devonian with widespread effects continuing into the Mississippian and early Pennsylvanian. Most of the evidence for this event is in Nevada but the limits of its reach are unknown. A great volume of conglomeratic deposits of mainly Mississippian age in Nevada and adjacent areas testifies to the existence of an important tectonic event, and implies nearby areas of uplift and erosion, but the nature and cause of that event are uncertain and in dispute. Although it is known as an orogeny, some of the classic features of orogeny as commonly defined such as metamorphism, and granitic intrusives have not been linked to it. In spite of this, the event is universally designated as an orogeny and that practice is continued here. This article outlines what is known and unknown about the Antler orogeny and describes three current theories regarding its nature and origin.
The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the East coast of the United States. As the mountain chain eroded in the Silurian and Devonian periods, sediments from the mountain chain spread throughout the present-day Appalachians and midcontinental North America.
The Variscan or Hercynianorogeny was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea.
The Sevier orogeny was a mountain-building event that affected western North America from northern Canada to the north to Mexico to the south.
The Princess Margaret Range, also called the Princess Margaret Mountains, are a mountain range on Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut, Canada. The range is one of the most northern ranges in the world and of the Arctic Cordillera. The highest mountain in the range is Outlook Peak at 2,210 m (7,251 ft). The range has an area of 42,865 km2 (16,550 sq mi).
The Innuitian orogeny, sometimes called the Ellesmere orogeny, was a major tectonic episode of the late Devonian to early Carboniferous, responsible for the formation of a series of mountain ranges in the Canadian Arctic and Northernmost Greenland. The episode started with the earliest Paleozoic rifting, extending from Ellesmere Island to Melville Island. However, the cause of the orogen remains poorly understood.
The Boulder Hills are a mountain range in northeastern Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. It is associated with the Arctic Cordillera mountain system.
Volcanism of Northern Canada has produced hundreds of volcanic areas and extensive lava formations across Northern Canada. The region's different volcano and lava types originate from different tectonic settings and types of volcanic eruptions, ranging from passive lava eruptions to violent explosive eruptions. Northern Canada has a record of very large volumes of magmatic rock called large igneous provinces. They are represented by deep-level plumbing systems consisting of giant dike swarms, sill provinces and layered intrusions.
This is a list of articles related to plate tectonics and tectonic plates.
The geology of North America is a subject of regional geology and covers the North American continent, the third-largest in the world. Geologic units and processes are investigated on a large scale to reach a synthesized picture of the geological development of the continent.
The East Antarctic Shield or Craton is a cratonic rock body that covers 10.2 million square kilometers or roughly 73% of the continent of Antarctica. The shield is almost entirely buried by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that has an average thickness of 2200 meters but reaches up to 4700 meters in some locations. East Antarctica is separated from West Antarctica by the 100–300 kilometer wide Transantarctic Mountains, which span nearly 3,500 kilometers from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. The East Antarctic Shield is then divided into an extensive central craton that occupies most of the continental interior and various other marginal cratons that are exposed along the coast.
The Wernecke Mountains are located in the East-central Yukon Territory of Canada. They have provided important wildlife habitat for animals such as grizzly bears and caribou as well as trapping and hunting land for the indigenous people of the Yukon for many centuries. They are the northernmost expression of the North American Cordillera, a chain of mountains stretching from Alaska to southern Mexico. This area has a northern climate characterized by short summers and long winters, with average temperatures from −26 °C (−15 °F) in the winter to 22 °C (72 °F) in the summer While essentially unpopulated, this area is well known for its rich mineral deposits, including gold, silver and copper.
The geology of Nunavut began to form nearly three billion years ago in the Archean and the territory preserves some of the world's oldest rock units.
The geology of the State of New York is made up of ancient Precambrian crystalline basement rock, forming the Adirondack Mountains and the bedrock of much of the state. These rocks experienced numerous deformations during mountain building events and much of the region was flooded by shallow seas depositing thick sequences of sedimentary rock during the Paleozoic. Fewer rocks have deposited since the Mesozoic as several kilometers of rock have eroded into the continental shelf and Atlantic coastal plain, although volcanic and sedimentary rocks in the Newark Basin are a prominent fossil-bearing feature near New York City from the Mesozoic rifting of the supercontinent Pangea.
The Canadian Arctic Rift System is a major North American geological structure extending from the Labrador Sea in the southeast through Davis Strait, Baffin Bay and the Arctic Archipelago in the northwest. It consists of a series of interconnected rifts that formed during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Extensional stresses along the entire length of the rift system have resulted in a variety of tectonic features, including grabens, half-grabens, basins and faults.
The Roosevelt Range or Roosevelt Mountains is a mountain range in Northern Greenland. Administratively this range is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park. Its highest peak is the highest point in Peary Land.