Nov. 4 Seminar: Shear zones of the Superior Boundary Zone, northern Manitoba, Canada

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 4:15 PM in SSN 191. Refreshments served at 4.

Yvette Kuiper, Department of Geology & Geophysics, Boston College

The Superior Boundary Zone in northern Manitoba separates the Neoarchean Pikwitonei Granulite Domain or Superior Province to the southeast from the Paleoproterozoic amphibolite-grade Trans-Hudson Orogen to the northwest. It is an up to 50 km wide transitional zone of deformation that is distributed over multiple shear zones. Paleoproterozoic movement along these shear zones accommodated transport of the Superior Province to the northwest. Kinematics along the shear zones indicate that the shear zones either were active at different times, or they were part of a zone of macroscopic brecciation. Furthermore, the shear zones provide excellent examples of partitioning of transpression into domains with a high simple shear component and with a high pure shear component. The talk will focus on the Paleoproterozoic kinematics of the shear zones and on preliminary geochronology results. Alternative tectonic models will be discussed.

Yvette Kuiper is an Assistant Professor at Boston College where she teaches Structural Geology and Geological Field Mapping and Methods. She earned her M.Sc. at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and her PhD. at the University of New Brunswick. Her research interests include strain partitioning in shear zones and geochronology in high grade gneiss terranes.