STRUCTURAL-ANALYSIS OF THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHWESTERN SUDBURY STRUCTURE, SOUTHERN PROVINCE, CANADIAN SHIELD

The Sudbury Structure (SS) is an unusual crater structure which acquired its present oval surface shape during northwest-directed ductile thrusting. Lower amphibolite-facies metamorphism accompanied the thrusting which generated a major reverse shear zone. At least 50 km long, the South Range shear zone (SRSZ) transects the South Range of the Sudbury Structure and exhumes a low level of the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC). Assuming heterogeneous simple shear in the northwest-southeast vertical plane on northeasterly striking glide surfaces, minimal estimates of net displacement across the SRSZ exceed 8 km. This displacement magnitude and the map pattern of the SIC require the southwest closure of the SS to be steeply plunging, in accord with a hypothetical funnel shape of the SIC. The rocks of the metasedimentary core of the SS are deformed into a family of second-order buckle folds, the tangent surface of which forms an upright open flexure within the first-order structure of the Sudbury synclinorium. The original orientation and bulk rotation of contacts in the SIC are unknown, so its participation in large-scale folding remains uncertain.