Silurian tectonic history of Penobscot Bay region, Maine

Abstract

Early Paleozoic amalgamation of composite terranes was contemporaneous at widely separated regions that were later accreted to either ancestral North America or to Gondwana as those two continents approached each other. Peri-Gondwanan terranes formed from Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician rocks were amalgamated in the Late Ordovician and Early Silurian to form the Salinic orogenic belt. Salinic orogenic activity involved extensive thrust faulting and metamorphism, large strike-slip faults, and plutonism. In the Penobscot Bay region, Maine, the peri-Gondwanan St. Croix terrane was thrust northwest in the Silurian(?) upon middle amphibolite facies Ordovician and Early Silurian rocks of the Fredericton trough. The strike-slip faults are interpreted to either remain steep until they reach the sole of the thrust sheet or to become listric within the thrust sheet. -from Authors