Structural evolution of basement gneisses and Hadrynian cover, Bulldog Creek area, Rocky Mountains, British Columbia

Abstract

Two gneiss bodies are contained in thrust sheets on the west edge of the Rocky Mountain Main Ranges near Valemount, British Columbia. The Bulldog Gneiss comprises Aphebian or older paragneiss and amphibolitic gneiss intruded by Aphebian orthogneiss sheets. The Yellowjacket Gneiss is granodioritic orthogneiss of unknown age. Both gneiss bodies are basement highs with thin Hadrynian metasediment cover sequences. The cover sequences are assigned to the lower Miette Group and are correlated with Horsethief Creek Group.Internal shortening of gneiss thrust sheets is expressed by recumbent folding and stacking of thin thrust sheets of gneiss and cover. The Bulldog Gneiss and its cover were carried on the postmetamorphic Purcell Thrust. The Yellowjacket Gneiss and its cover were carried on the pre- to synmetamorphic Bear Foot Thrust. Northeast and northwest displacement is documented on the moderately southwest-dipping Bear Foot Thrust, and a dextral oblique-slip – thrust model is proposed to explain the duality of thrust and dextral strike-slip kinematic indicators in mylonite from the fault. An estimate of shortening in the fore-land suggests that basement thrust sheets were translated more than 200 km to the northeast.Correlation of gneisses and cover with the westerly adjacent Malton Gneiss and its cover precludes major dextral strike-slip motion on the Southern Rocky Mountain Trench (SRMT) during and after thrusting. The SRMT was the locus of post-thrusting and postmetamorphic, Eocene(?), brittle, west-side-down, normal faulting.