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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 69 (1985)

Issue: 4. (April)

First Page: 661

Last Page: 661

Title: Geotectonics of the Bering Sea Area, Alaska: ABSTRACT

Author(s): David A. Desautels

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Plate tectonic interactions in the Bering Sea area have played a major role in its structural and geological history since Paleozoic time. The geotectonic style of different areas is similar due to the widespread influence of plate motions. Three major structural and depositional belts have been identified linking the Siberian area to Alaska across the Bering Sea. The northern belt, the Verkhoyansk-Chukotsk-Seward-Brooks, consists of early Mesozoic miogeosynclinal sediments. The middle belt, the Okhotsk-Chukotsk-Yukon-Koyukuk, consists of a Mesozoic magmatic arc and numerous accreted allochthonous terranes. These features were formed as a result of convergence/subduction of a southern oceanic plate. The southern belt, the Koryak-Anadyr-Peninsular, consists of terranes acc eted during Cretaceous time and forms the southern limit of Mesozoic subduction.

During Late Cretaceous to early Tertiary time, rifting in the Atlantic caused these belts to be oroclinally bent southward and resulted in a shift of the Mesozoic subduction zone to a more southerly location. During formation of the oroclinal fold, subduction along the Bering Shelf margin changed from direct to oblique subduction, then to transform motion. Major movement along this margin ceased as the current Aleutian Island arc system began to form.

Late Cretaceous to early Tertiary structures within the Koryak-Anadyr-Peninsular area are potentially important for petroleum exploration because they could have formed concurrently with source and reservoir facies.

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