Structural evolution of the Cross Lake greenstone belt in the northwestern Superior Province, Manitoba: implications for relationship between vertical and horizontal tectonism.

Evidence for both vertical and horizontal movement is well preserved in the Cross Lake greenstone belt in the northwestern Superior Province. The vertical movement components are concentrated in high-strain zones along pluton–greenstone contacts and are characterized by pluton-side-up or greenstone-side-down movement, and the geometry, kinematics, and strain distribution are consistent with a vertical tectonic model involving diapirism and sagduction. The horizontal components are concentrated in major east-southeast-trending dextral high-strain zones and in subordinate northeast-trending sinistral, antithetic high-strain zones and can be readily explained by a horizontal tectonic model involving dextral transpression. Results of a detailed structural analysis indicate that the vertical and horizontal tectonism were more or less synchronous, and there was a transition from dominantly vertical tectonism at the early stages to dominantly horizontal tectonism at the late stages. The Cross Lake Group, consisting of Timiskaming-type sedimentary rocks, was deposited in a synclinal keel between granitoid domes associated with vertical tectonism. It is suggested that synchronous vertical and horizontal tectonism was a common process in the Neoarchean and might represent a transition from dominant vertical tectonism in the Mesoarchean (and Paleoarchean?) to dominant horizontal tectonism in the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]