The Caledonian thin-skinned thrust belt of Kronprins Christian Land, eastern North Greenland

Abstract

Kronprins Christian Land in the extreme north of the East Greenland Caledonides, exposes a thin-skinned thrust belt up to 50 km wide developed in Ordovician–Silurian platform limestones and dolostones of the Iapetus passive margin. This thrust belt is characterised by a series of SSW–NNE-trending and east-dipping Caledonian thrusts with westward displacements of generally a few kilometres each. It passes westwards into undisturbed autochthonous foreland. Based on a line and area restoration, total displacement along a well-exposed WNW–ESE section through the thrust belt amounts to 17.6 km, which represents a shortening of 45% in the line of section. Biostratigraphic control in the limestone and dolostone succession is based on conodonts and macrofossils. The alteration colours of the conodonts provide estimates of maximum burial temperatures, which show that the thickness of the overlying thrust sheets ranged from about 6 to 12.5 km from west to east across the thrust belt. Since the estimated former thickness of the Vandredalen thrust sheet above the thin-skinned parautochthonous thrust belt is insufficient to yield the temperatures attained, higher thrust sheets must once have extended across the region.