Rift to Post-Rift Tectonostratigraphy of the Sverdrup Basin in Relation to Onset of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP) in the Early Cretaceous, Arctic Canada

Abstract

A summary of the Jurassic-Cretaceous rift to breakup tectonostratigraphy of the onshore Sverdrup Basin is correlated to the offshore Amerasia Basin in order to reconstruct a tectonic setting for the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP). The rift climax from the Canadian rifted margin is correlated with hyper-extension of the continent-ocean-transition zone. Hyper-extension of the continental lithosphere can accommodate plate motions of Arctic Alaska-Chukotka away from the Canadian Arctic Islands and Lomonosov Ridge between ∼155 Ma and 135–133 Ma. After lithospheric breakup at ∼135–133 Ma, correlation of the post-rift stage to the seafloor spreading anomalies M10n to M4n that are associated with oceanic crustal domains can accommodate plate motions from 135–133 Ma to 128 Ma. The uncertainties associated with the earliest magmas of HALIP overlap with the uncertainties on the timing of the latest seafloor spreading. The first main pulse of HALIP in the Aptian at 124–120 Ma post-dates seafloor spreading and so HALIP was emplaced in a tectonic setting that closely resembles the present state of the south and eastern Amerasia Basin. At the paleogeographic center of the HALIP, the Alpha Ridge complex is consistent with the magmatic character and history of similar Cretaceous oceanic plateau in terms of volume and duration.