Abstract

The continental collision of Africa with North America and Europe during late Paleozoic time resulted in uplift, folding, faulting and granitic intrusion in an area of over 300,000 square miles in the Atlantic provinces, Gulf of St. Lawrence and continental shelf east of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. As the Acadian orogeny waned, the highly fractured basement of the Acadian Orogen subsided, forming a complex series of northeast-trending horst and graben structures known as the Fundy Epieugeosyncline. This lens-shaped basin extends from the Bay of Fundy to White Bay in northern Newfoundland. Late Middle Devonian to Tournaisian piedmont and fluvio-lacustrine sediments of the Horton Group covered and partially filled depressions on the uneven surface of the Orogen. During Late Tournaisian and Early Visean time, the area continued to subside, permitting the advance of the Windsor sea that was possibly an extension of the Visean sea of northwestern Europe. Restricted circulation of this sea in eastern Canada resulted in the accumulation of thick deposits of Windsor Group evaporites. In Late Visean-Early Namurian time, renewed compression (the Maritime Disturbance) terminated marine deposition. From Early Namurian, through Westphalian, Stephanian and into Wolfcampian time, fluviatile, flood plain, lacustrine and swamp environments accumulated thick deposits of red and grey clastics, coal and minor carbonates of the Canso-Riversdale and Cumberland-Pictou Groups.