Upper-crustal, basement-involved folding in the East Range of the Sudbury Basin, Ontario, inferred from paleomagnetic data and spatial analysis of mafic dykes
Tilting of crystalline basement rocks associated with folding strain at uppermost crustal levels is difficult to recognize if basement rocks are devoid of traceable marker planes. Here we use the spatial variation in strike of Paleoproterozoic mafic dyke segments complemented by compiled paleomagnetic data to identify tilting in Archean basement rocks associated with kilometre-scale folds of the eastern Sudbury Basin, Ontario. Spatial analysis of the strike of dyke segments is consistent with generation of the NE lobe and a newly identified anticline, referred to as the West Bay Anticline, in the layered Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC). This anticline accounts better for the structural characteristics of the eastern Sudbury Basin than a previously proposed anticline with west-plunging hinge line. The West Bay Anticline is characterized by abrupt plan-view thickness variations in the lower SIC and curved faults displaying significant strike separations of SIC contacts. These structural characteristics are co...