Award Date

1-1-1997

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Geoscience

First Committee Member

Margaret N. Rees

Number of Pages

90

Abstract

The Douglas Conglomerate in the Churchill Mountains of Antarctica is a polymictic, unconformity-bounded unit whose age is poorly constrained between Late Cambrian and Devonian. Its source areas were local, including outcrops of Cambrian Shackleton Limestone, the craton of Greater Antarctica, and perhaps, terranes that lay outboard of the craton but subsequently were dispersed along transform faults; Petrographic analyses suggest a recycled orogen provenance for the Douglas Its depositional basin may have developed within a fold-and-thrust belt or along an active transform fault. Subsequent tectonism dismembered the formation, but its composition suggests the basin had fault-controlled margins walled within Shackleton Limestone and numerous simultaneously active depositional systems; Although the Douglas crops out within the trend of Cambro-Ordovician granitic batholiths it does not record the unroofing of these plutons. Therefore, it is probably older than the intrusives and was deposited in response to an earlier tectonic event.

Keywords

Antarctica; Churchill; Conglomerate; Las Vegas; Mountains; Paleozoic; Provenance; Significance; Tectonic

Controlled Subject

Geology

File Format

pdf

File Size

3235.84 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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