The Ordovician South Mayo Trough, a basin that recorded the passage of a triple junction along the Laurentian margin

Abstract

ABSTRACT Tectonic models for arc-continent collision can be overly complex where, for example, diachronous sedimentation and deformation along a single plate boundary are attributed to separate tectonic events. Furthermore, continuous sedimentation in a single basin recording a diachronous collision along a plate margin makes it difficult to use classical unconformable relationships to date an orogenic phase. In this chapter, we describe the Ordovician South Mayo Trough of western Ireland, a remarkable example of such a basin. It originated in the late Cambrian–Early Ordovician as a Laurentia-facing oceanic forearc basin to the Lough Nafooey arc. This arc was split by a spreading ridge to form a trench-trench-ridge triple junction at the trench. The basin remained below sea level during Grampian/Taconic arc-continent collision and, following subduction flip, received sediment from an active continental margin. Sedimentation ended during Late Ordovician Mayoian “Andean”-style shortening, broadly coeval with a marked fall in global sea level. These major tectonic events are traced through the nature of the detritus and volcanism in this basin, which is preserved in a mega-syncline. The Grampian orogen is not recorded as a regional unconformity, but as a sudden influx of juvenile metamorphic detritus in a conformable sequence.