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Silurian subduction-related assembly of fault-defined tracts at the Laurieston Fault, Southern Uplands accretionary terrane, Scotland, U.K.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

M. C. Akhurst ,
A. A. McMillan ,
G. S. Kimbell ,
P. Stone  and
R. J. Merriman
M. C. Akhurst
Affiliation:
M. C. Akhurst, A. A. McMillan and P. Stone, British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, UK.
A. A. McMillan
Affiliation:
M. C. Akhurst, A. A. McMillan and P. Stone, British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, UK.
G. S. Kimbell
Affiliation:
G. S. Kimbell and R. J. Merriman, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK.
P. Stone
Affiliation:
M. C. Akhurst, A. A. McMillan and P. Stone, British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, UK.
R. J. Merriman
Affiliation:
G. S. Kimbell and R. J. Merriman, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK.
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Abstract

ABSTRACT

Subduction-related accretion of fault-defined tracts built up the Southern Uplands terrane during the final stages of closure of the Iapetus Ocean (Llandovery to Wenlock). Contrasts in depositional environment and pronounced differences in geochemical composition, provenance studies and metamorphic grade across the Laurieston Fault between the Gala and Hawick groups, suggests that it has a greater regional significance than most other tract-bounding structures. Initiated by underthrusting, and acting as a locus for subsequent sinistral strike-slip, the fault overlies a regional gravity anomaly gradient that is interpreted to be due, in part, to a concealed NW-ward dipping shallow basement surface. This is modelled as an open ramp in the NE that steepens to a near-vertical step along-strike to the SW. A change in structural geometry noted at the Laurieston Fault, with excision of accretionary tracts, is related to a period of oblique closure of the Iapetus Ocean. The youngest Gala Group tracts were accreted during a period of intense transpression to form a regional strike-slip duplex over the shallow basement ramp with termination of the tracts at the Laurieston Fault, its surface expression. The ramp acted as an obstacle to forward-breaking thrust progress, forcing the out-of-sequence thrusting and repetitive thrust imbrication noted in the eastern Southern Uplands. Upper Palaeozoic reactivation of this basement structure may have transferred strain between extensional Permian basins.

Keywords

biostratigraphyduplex structureGala GroupgeochemistrygeophysicsHawick Groupillite crystallinityNd isotopesprovenancesedimentology
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 91 , Issue 3-4: The Southern Uplands Terrane: Tectonics and Biostratigraphy within the Caledonian Orogen , 2000 , pp. 435 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 2000

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