The Billefjorden Fault Zone north of Spitsbergen: a major terrane boundary?

Jean-Baptiste Koehl; Lis Allaart

doi:10.33265/polar.v40.7668

Jean-Baptiste Koehl Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway; Research Centre for Arctic Petroleum Exploration, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway; and Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
Lis Allaart Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway; Department of Geoscience, Århus University, Århus, Denmark; and Department of Arctic Geology, University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v40.7668

Keywords: Fault, basement terranes, seismic facies, Svalbard, tectonic

Abstract

The Billefjorden Fault Zone is a major terrane boundary in the Norwegian Arctic. The fault separates basement rocks of Svalbard’s north-eastern and north-western terranes that recorded discrete Precambrian tectonothermal histories and were accreted, intensely deformed and metamorphosed during the Caledonian Orogeny. Although the fault represents a major, crustal-scale tectonic boundary, its northward extent is not well constrained. The present short contribution addresses this issue and presents new seismic mapping of structures and rock units north of Wijdefjorden, where the Billefjorden Fault Zone may continue. This study shows that there is no evidence for major faulting of the top-basement reflection, and therefore, that the Billefjorden Fault Zone may die out within Wijdefjorden–Austfjorden, step ≥ 20 km laterally, or be invisible on the presented seismic data. Seismic data also suggest that Caledonian basement rocks in Ny-Friesland (north-eastern terrane) are not significantly different from basement rocks below the Devonian Graben in Andrée Land (north-western terrane). Potential implications include the absence of a major terrane boundary in northern Spitsbergen.

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