Wopmay orogeny

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Wopmay orogeny is the geological name for a mountain formation on the western edge of the Canadian shield . The now eroded mountains originate from the Paleoproterozoic (approx. 2000–1800  mya ) on the supercontinent Kenorland . Through this unfolding, one of the world's oldest rocks - the Acasta gneiss from the Hadaicum of 4030 mya - was brought to light.

The rock sequences of the Wopmay orogeny appear - unique in the world - in north-western Canada, on the western edge of the craton of the even older Azoic / archaic slave province , where they form the earth's crust and the lithosphere . Accordingly, this area provides a spatial and temporal connection between the archaic parts of the Northwest Territories around Yellowknife with its diamond , radium , silver and gold deposits and the Phanerozoic Cordillera and shows the development of northwestern North America since the earliest history of the earth.

During the two main stages of the collision of the primeval continental plates caused the tectonic areas of hottah lake 2,000 mya, today's Nahanni National Park with the Mackenzie Mountains 1,840 mya, the volcanic arc around the Great Bear Lake and the Fort Simpson -sink.

The research into subduction by the Canadian project Lithoprobe-SNORCLE (Slave Northern Cordillera Lithospheric Evolution) is carried out at depths of up to 100 km through seismic reflection / refraction and electromagnetic profiles. The Fort Simpson Basin is up to 25 kilometers deep, but is largely buried under Canada's thin western sedimentary basin. Some of the flat Proterozoic layers of the Wopmay orogen extend to the Cordilleras and British Columbia .

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