The Wandel Hav Strike-Slip Mobile Belt - A Mesozoic plate boundary in North Greenland: Tektonisk pladegrænse i NØ-Grønland

  • Eckart Håkansson
  • , Stig A. Schack Pedersen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

    41 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The historical 'de Geer Line' between Svalbard and Greenland is shown to have had a Mesozoic precursor now residing well within the continental Greenland plate, where it coincides with the Wandel Hav Strike-Slip Mobile Belt. Well-constrained phases in relative plate motion reflected in the mobile belt are discernible back to the mid Jurassic, with more obscure phases dating even further back. There is evidence that the Wandel Hav Strike-Slip Mobile Belt may have been formed already in Late Palaeozoic time during onset of Pangean break-up; evidence for strike-slip movements of this age is, however, largely circumstantial, due to severe overprinting during the later phases. Wrench tectonics along the 'fossil' plate boundary culminated around the Cretaceous - Palaeogene boundary in the major right-lateral, transpressional Kronprins Christian Land Orogeny. Thus, the Wandel Hav Strike-Slip Mobile Belt may constitute the geological/structural expression of the Mesozoic Laurentian - Eurasian plate boundary all the way up to initiation of actual sea-floor spreading at chron 24 in Palaeogene time.

    Translated title of the contributionWandel Hav sideværts forkastnings bælte - en mesozoisk bladegrænse i Nordgrønland
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)149-158
    Number of pages10
    JournalBulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark
    Volume48
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2001

    Keywords

    • De geer line
    • North Greenland
    • Plate boundary
    • Strike-slip
    • Wrench tectonic

    Programme Area

    • Programme Area 5: Nature and Climate

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