The Maritimes Basin of Atlantic Canada: basin creation and destruction in collisional zone of Pangea. In: The Phanerozoic sedimentary basins of the United States and Canada

During the final assembly of Pangea, the Maritimes Basin of Atlantic Canada was tectonically active for B120 Myr from the Mid-Devonian to the Early Permian, following terrane accretion and ocean closure in the region. The basin’s history records a prolonged period of convergence that post-dated the collision of Gondwana and Laurussia. The 12 km of basin fill was laid down in suites of periodically connected depocenters, and parts of the region experienced a polycyclic basin history, with repeated subsidence and inversion of fault-bounded depocenters, many associated with strike-slip faults. During two periods in the basin history, sedimentation overstepped fault zones under a regime of thermal subsidence to blanket much of the region. The basin fills are largely continental but include one open-marine interval with evaporite accumulation (Mississippian), as well as restricted-marine intervals, reflecting progressive loss of oceanic connection. Basinal architecture testifies to rapid subsidence against a backdrop of glacioeustatic influence in a paleoequatorial setting. Volcanics and intrusions were especially prominent during Devonian to Mississippian convergence, and halokinesis greatly influenced later basin development. A partial analogue for the Maritimes Basin is provided by modern Turkey and environs, situated in the Arabia–Eurasia collision zone, where strike-slip faults and basin formation record continued post-collisional convergence adjacent to the Zagros thrust belt. Local crustal thickening, delamination of subducting crust, volcanism, extensional zones, and basin creation along crustal-scale faults are prominent in this region.