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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Utah Geological Association

Abstract


Proceedings of the First International Conference on the New Basement Tectonics, 1974
Pages 200-217

Fracture Analysis of New York State Using Multi-Stage Remote Sensor Data and Ground Study; Possible Application to Plate Tectonic Modeling

Yngvar W. Isachsen

Abstract

A continuing analysis of fracture systems of New York State utilizes existing information supplemented by multistage remote sensor data and conventional ground study. Linear features of inferred and demonstrated fracture origin have been extracted from NIMBUS-I and ERTS-I imagery, and low level oblique photographs; SKYLAB and high altitude aerial photography are currently under study. In the Proterozoic rocks which are exposed in the core of the Adirondack Mountains dome (and which constitute buried basement in most of the remainder of the State), analysis of 656 faults, lineaments, and photo-linears shows strong maxima which can be expressed in terms of four pairsets, each having the north to northeast member dominant, as follows: (I) N45E, (II) N15E, (III) N70E, (IV) N, plus two additional unpaired maxima at N60E and N80E. The prominence of the northeast members of each set is probably due to reactivation of fractures during upwarping of the elongate Adirondack Dome.

A possible origin of the Proterozoic fractures in the Adirondacks is considered in terms of Dewey and Burke’s (1973) Tibetan model for the Grenville orogeny. It is suggested that the fracture system may be an inherited one which originated in near surface rocks during the Grenville Orogenic Cycle, i.e. that the system was propagated downward from an original plateau surface during gradual erosion of 25 to 30 km of continental crust prior to the deposition of the Upper Cambrian sandstones which now lie on the unconformity.


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