Structural and tectonic evolution of the Humber Zone, western Newfoundland, 1. Implications of balanced cross sections through the Appalachian structural front, Port Au Port Peninsula

The Appalachian structural front in western Newfoundland, which is principally a submarine feature that comes ashore on Port au Port Peninsula, is interpreted to be a structural triangle zone, or tectonic wedge. Rocks within the triangle zone, which are therefore transported, include the Taconian (Middle Ordovician) Humber Arm Allochthon, Taconian foreland clastic sediments, and the Cambro‐Ordovician platform succession. The transported clastic sediments and platformal rocks, as well as structurally involved Grenville crystalline basement exposed east of the peninsula, compose the Acadian (Siluro‐Devonian) Port au Port Allochthon, which carried the Humber Arm Allochthon as a high structural slice; Acadian transport of tens of kilometers westward is suggested. This interpretation contrasts markedly with the traditional and widely accepted interpretation of the Taconian and Acadian orogenies in western Newfoundland. Here we reinforce our earlier arguments for an allochthonous interpretation by presenting a series of six closely spaced, balanced cross sections across the Port au Port Peninsula. These sections illustrate our interpretation of complex and noncylindrical structures within the triangle zone, as well as the envisioned structural linkage between exposures on Port au Port Peninsula and the geometry of the triangle zone interpreted from offshore seismic data 23 km along strike to the northeast. The southeast vergent Tea Cove thrust, which formed an early upper detachment to the triangle zone, is offset and overturned by the north‐northwest vergent Round Head thrust. The Round Head thrust is interpreted to flatten into a second southeast vergent thrust, the Red Brook detachment, which formed a late upper detachment to the triangle zone. Some map‐scale structures are interpreted as fault‐bend folds above oblique ramps on the Red Brook detachment. Allochthonous crystalline basement within the triangle zone, beneath its attached platformal cover, is interpreted as a result of thrust reactivation of a preexisting basement‐cutting normal fault, which may have formed during rifting of the early Paleozoic Iapetus Ocean. This interpretation is suggested by the stratigraphy and geometry of spatially restricted coarse conglomeratic units on Port au Port Peninsula, and is supported by the restored cross sections.