Late Mesozoic–Cenozoic Tectonics and Geodynamics of the East Arctic Region

Abstract

Abstract Tectonic and geodynamic models of the formation of the Amerasian Basin are discussed. The Arctic margins of the Chukchi region and Northern Alaska have much in common in their Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous tectonic evolution: (1) Both have a Neoproterozoic basement and a complexly deformed sedimentary cover, with the stage of Elsmere deformations recorded in their tectonic history; (2) the South Anyui and Angayucham ocean basins have a common geologic history from the beginning of formation in the late Paleozoic to the closure at the end of the Early Cretaceous, which allows us to consider them branches of the single Proto-Arctic Ocean, the northern margin of which was passive and the southern margin was active; (3) the dipping of the oceanic and, then, continental lithosphere took place in subduction zones southerly; (4) the collision of the passive and active margins of both basins occurred at the end of the Early Cretaceous and ended in Hauterivian–Barremian time; (5) the collision resulted in thrust–fold structures of northern vergence in the Chukchi fold belt and in the orogen of the Brooks Ridge. A subduction-convective geodynamic model of the formation of the Amerasian Basin is proposed, which is based on seismic-tomography data on the existence of a circulation of matter in the upper mantle beneath the Arctic and East Asia in a horizontally elongated convective cell with a length of several thousand kilometers. This circulation involves the subducted Pacific lithosphere, the material of which moves along the bottom of the upper mantle from the subduction zone toward the continent, forming the lower branch of the cell, and the closing upper branch of the cell forms a reverse flow of matter beneath the lithosphere toward the subduction zone, which is the driving force determining the surface kinematics of crustal blocks and the deformation of the lithosphere. The viscous dragging of the Amerasian lithosphere by the horizontal flow of the upper mantle matter toward the Pacific leads to the separation of the system of blocks of Alaska and the Chukchi region from the Canadian Arctic margin. The resulting scattered deformations can cause a different-scale thinning of the continental crust with the formation of a region of Central Arctic elevation and troughs or with a breakup of the continental crust with subsequent rifting and spreading in the Canadian Basin.