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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 64 (1980)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 747

Last Page: 748

Title: Terrestrial Sedimentation Associated with Strike-Slip Fault Movement in Middle Carboniferous of Nova Scotia, Canada: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Peter J. McCabe, Kevin L. McCarty, Scott B. Pluim

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The Carboniferous Minas basin of Nova Scotia developed along the dextral strike-slip Glooscap fault. During the early Namurian, the West Bay Formation was deposited in the Parrsboro area of this basin. This formation consists mainly of siltstone with symmetrical ripples and desiccation features and thin beds of detrital ferroan calcite and is interpreted as a playa lake deposit. To the northeast, lower Namurian lacustrine sediments of the Hastings Formation crop out over much of Cape Breton Island. The Hastings and West Bay Formations may have been deposited in the same lake complex, and the Parrsboro and Cape Breton areas, now 225 km apart, were probably adjacent.

During the middle Namurian, the West Bay Formation

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was folded. The formation may have been compressed as it was translated through a concave part of the Glooscap fault.

The 1,800-m thick Parrsboro Formation was then deposited in the Parrsboro area during the late Namurian and early Westphalian. The Parrsboro Formation consists of fining-upward sandstone units, thin sandstone beds, and mudstones with roots. It is interpreted as a fluvial and lacustrine sequence. The great thickness of the formation may be due to the formation of an extension basin in a convex part of the fault system. A basal conglomerate of the Parrsboro Formation was derived from the east, presumably from the uplifted area at the concave part of the fault. Throughout the rest of the formation a gradual change in the paleocurrent direction from eastward to southwestward may be due to migration of the depocenter of the extension basin.

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