HR: 09:30h
AN: T11E-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Wrangel Island, a Jewel of the Arctic
AU: * Pease, V
EM: vicky.pease@geo.su.se
AF: Dept. of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-10691, Sweden
AB: The opening of the Amerasia Basin in the Arctic is generally considered to have occurred during Cretaceous time. The tectonic development of the Basin, however, remains problematic because associated sea floor magnetic anomalies are difficult to interpret and the origins of features in and around the Basin are poorly understood. Land-based geologic investigations of the surrounding Amerasia Basin region provide a means of testing mechanisms for the opening of the Basin. Such studies are valuable and necessary, but the vast and mostly hidden intervening Russian Arctic shelf region may make it difficult to actually integrate these studies into a viable model. Therefore, the Arctic islands in this shelf region are crucial for linking on-shore and shelf geology and for testing any model for the development of the Amerasia Basin. Wrangel Island occupies a critical location in this vast shelf region and as such represents a jewel of the Arctic. In 2006, an international team of geologists (S. Sokolov, M. Tuchkova, V. Verzhbitsky, E. Miller and V. Pease) visited the island. New field studies and sampling programs were undertaken. U-Pb ion microprobe detrital zircon ages from Paleozoic mylonitic clastic rocks will be presented and should characterize 1) the provenance of basement being eroded to form these deposits, and 2) the timing of mylonitic deformation.
DE: 8100 TECTONOPHYSICS
DE: 8110 Continental tectonics: general (0905)
DE: 8150 Plate boundary: general (3040)
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting