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The British Caledonides: interpretations from Cenozoic analogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

A. H. G. Mitchell
A. H. G. Mitchell
Affiliation:
C/o U.N.D.P., P.O. Box 7285 ADC, M.I.A. Road, Metro Manila, Philippines
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Abstract

Recent interpretations of Cenozoic arc systems and collision belts facilitate reinterpretation of some aspects of British Caledonide evolution. End-Cambrian ‘Grampian’ collision of the passive ‘Dalradian’ foreland following southeastwards subduction beneath an island arc was accompanied by initiation of the Highland Boundary Fault as a high-angle south-directed oblique-slip thrust. Mid-Ordovician to early Devonian northwestward oblique subduction of the Iapetus Ocean beneath the Grampian orogen resulted in a continental margin magmatic arc, back-arc thrusting and development of an accretionary prism, while southeastward subduction led to arc magmatism and back-arc extension followed by initiation of the Rheic Ocean as a back-arc marginal basin; this syn-subduction N–S asymmetry of the Iapetus Ocean margins was analogous to the E–W asymmetry of the modern Pacific. Closure of Iapetus was diachronous, earlier in the northeast: during end-Silurian collision the southern Caledonides behaved as a passive foreland; post-collision foreland thrusting resulted in deposition and deformation of Lower Old Red Sandstone foreland basin deposits in Wales, and probably in northwest-directed back-thrusting in the region of the Longford-Down accretionary prism. Subsequent dextral movement in the suture zone juxtaposed the southern Caledonides with Scotland and northern Ireland, beneath which northwestward subduction had continued into the early Devonian.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 121 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 35 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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