Geologic constraints on kinematic models and age of formation of the Amerasia Basin of the Arctic

Abstract:

A wealth of new geologic and geophysical data now exist for the Amerasia Basin, but the details of its age and the nature/kinematics of events that resulted in its formation remain elusive.

Basement rock ages, detrital zircon signatures of sedimentary rocks, and sediment dispersal systems have been used to show how parts of the southern margin(s) of the Amerasia Basin (Arctic Alaska-Chukotka, AAC) match their rifted margin counterparts on the Eurasia and Canada side of the Amerasia Basin. Thus we know the approximate finite translations needed to restore the paleogeography of the Arctic, but not the kinematics involved.

Important features of the Amerasia Basin that need to be explained in a model for its opening are the age and extent of the high Arctic LIP, the linearity of the strip of continental crust represented by the Lomonosov Ridge, its right angle intersection with the Canadian Arctic margin, and the directional fault patterns mapped bathymetrically and seismically across the Alpha-Lomonosov Ridge and surrounding seafloor. Across AAC, post-Early Cretaceous oroclinal bends provide insight into strike-slip components of deformation involved in opening of the Amerasia Basin: The Chukchi syntax offsets the Brooks Range in a right-lateral sense from Wrangel Island along the Herald Arch; right-lateral motion of Arctic Alaska with respect to the Chukchi Borderland during opening of the Canada Basin; right-lateral shear in Chukotka during 100 Ma magmatism; the tight bend in the northern Verkhoyansk, result of Cretaceous right-lateral shear.

The land-based relationships imply a post-Early Cretaceous, younger than Barremian (~130 Ma) age for onset of magmatism and extension related to rifting and formation of the Amerasia Basin. At least two stages of extension are documented, with older E-W extension characterizing the longitude of the New Siberian Islands to Pevek, Russian Arctic, (ca.125 Ma to 100 Ma), with younger N-S extension superimposed on this system (ca. 100-80 Ma) that becomes as young as Cenozoic in the Bering Strait region. Both land and marine data support a complex opening model where rifting initiates at right angles to the Lomonosov Ridge followed by N-S rifting associated with rotation and southward translation of Arctic Alaska, the Chukchi Borderland, Chukotka and adjacent shelves.