Silurian Extrusion Wedge Tectonics in the Central Scandinavian Caledonides

Abstract:

The Scandian fold-thrust belt of the central Scandinavian Caledonides host the high-grade metamorphic Seve Nappe Complex bounded on top by a normal sense shear zone and at the base by a reverse sense shear zone. Rb-Sr multimineral geochronology in synkinematic assemblages indicates simultaneous movements at the normal-sense roof shear zone and at the reverse-sense floor shear zone between 434 Ma and 429 Ma. Pressure temperature pseudosection calculations provide evidence for eclogite facies metamorphic conditions and nearly isothermal decompression at ~670 ± 50 °C from 17.5 to 14.5 kbar in garnet-kyanite mica schists during reverse-sense shearing, and from 15 to 11 kbar in garnet mica schists during normal-sense shearing. These and other published data and the presence of decompression-related pegmatites dated at 434 Ma and 429 Ma indicate that the Seve nappes form a 1-2 km thin extrusion wedge that extends along strike for at least 150 km. Devonian ductile extensional to transtensional deformation of the more internal parts of the orogen did not affect the early to mid-Silurian extrusion wedge that was preserved in the more external parts of the orogen due to foreland-directed nappe displacements in the order of >400 km. This wedge marks an early stage of exhumation of (ultra-)high-pressure metamorphic rocks and orogenic wedge formation in this part of the Scandinavian Caledonides predating the ≥10 km thick, post–415 Ma exhumation processes of ultrahigh-pressure rocks in southwestern Norway.