The Post-Caledonian Development of Svalbard and the Western Barents Sea David Worsley
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The post-Caledonian development of Svalbard and the western Barents Sea David Worsley Færgestadveien 11, NO-3475 Sætre, Norway Keywords Abstract Barents Sea; climatic change; geological development; plate movement; Svalbard. The Barents Shelf, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the coasts of northern Norway and Russia, and from the Norwegian–Greenland Sea to Novaya Correspondence Zemlya, covers two major geological provinces. This review concentrates on David Worsley, Færgestadveien 11, NO-3475 the western province, with its complex mosaic of basins and platforms. A Sætre, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] growing net of coverage by seismic data, almost 70 deep hydrocarbon explo- ration wells and a series of shallow coring programmes, have contributed doi:10.1111/j.1751-8369.2008.00085.x greatly to our understanding of this province, supplementing information from neighbouring land areas. The late Paleozoic to present-day development of the region can be described in terms of five major depositional phases. These partly reflect the continuing northwards movement of this segment of the Eurasian plate from the equatorial zone in the mid-Devonian–early Carboniferous up to its present-day High Arctic latitudes, resulting in significant climatic changes through time. Important controls on sedimentation have involved varying tectonic processes along the eastern, northern and western margins of the shelf, whereas short- and long-term local and regional sea-level variations have further determined the depositional history of the province. The position of the Barents Shelf on the north-western teristic features are highly relevant for understanding corner of the Eurasian plate makes it a testing ground for the entire subsurface of the south-western shelf (Nøttvedt a better understanding of the geological development et al. 1993). Northern Norway, with its basement and of Europe, and of the entire Arctic Ocean. The shelf, Lower Paleozoic outcrops, represents the northernmost covering an area of approximately 1.3 million km2,is part of the Baltic Shield, with rocks affected by late surrounded by onland exposures with widely varying Precambrian and Caledonide orogenies (Ramberg et al. geology. Only a synthesis of these, together with available 2008). This cratonic area was only occasionally onlapped knowledge of the subsurface of the shelf itself, can help us during the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic, but its erosional understand the geological development of this vast products were important contributors to clastic Upper province, with its prognosed enormous—but as yet little Paleozoic and Mesozoic hydrocarbon reservoirs on the explored and developed—petroleum potential (Fig. 1). south-western shelf. The Svalbard Archipelago, forming the subaerially Timan–Pechora to the south-east, with its foredeeps exposed north-western margins of the shelf, covers a land and inversion zones immediately adjacent to the develop- area of only 63 000 km2, which is less than 5% of the ing Uralides in the late Paleozoic, shows a varied geology total area of the Barents Sea, but which displays a com- with many features of great relevance for eastern shelf prehensive overview of the geology of the entire region areas (Ulmishek 1985). Novaya Zemlya is dominated by (Steel & Worsley 1984; Worsley et al. 1986; Harland Permo-Carboniferous exposures in a complex facies array, 1997). Svalbard’s position immediately south of the perhaps reflecting the development of the archipelago as a polar Euramerican Basin, and east of the Norwegian– component of the Ural–Taimyr orogeny, prior to Triassic Greenland Sea, puts it in a critical position to allow us to westwards-directed thrusting and emplacement into its recognize many of the main features controlling the present position (Otto & Bailey 1995; Sobolev & Nakrem development of the western Barents Shelf. The general 1996). Franz Josef Land, with its exposures of Mesozoic platform aspect of the archipelago makes it not entirely sediments and volcanics, shows a development similar to representative of areas further south, but many charac- that of the north-eastern Svalbard Platform (Solheim 298 Polar Research 27 2008 298–317 © 2008 The Author D. Worsley Post-Caledonian Svalbard–Barents Sea Fig. 1 Land areas surrounding the Barents Sea have widely varying geologies (Mørk 1999). Map compiled by M.B.E. Mørk (see references in Mørk 1999). et al. 1998), with the volcanism in both areas being closely South and North Barents basins, shows a development connected with the opening of the polar Euramerican closely linked to that of the Uralides, Timan–Pechora and Basin during the Mesozoic. Novaya Zemlya. The western province, the focus of this The offshore Barents Shelf itself comprises two major review, shows a much more complex tectonic deve- and highly disparate provinces (Fig. 2), with a north– lopment (Faleide et al. 1984; Gabrielsen et al. 1990; south trending, generally monoclinal structure separating Gudlaugsson et al. 1998). The mosaic of basins, platforms eastern from western regions: this transition corresponds and structural highs in this area reflect the interplay roughly with the politically disputed area between through time between major tectonic processes along the Norway and Russia. The eastern region, with its massive western and north-western margins of the Eurasian plate. Polar Research 27 2008 298–317 © 2008 The Author 299 Post-Caledonian Svalbard–Barents Sea D. Worsley Fig. 2 Major structural elements of the Barents Sea. Changing tectonic and climatic controls on movements in the Silurian is still uncertain, many sedimentation: basement workers now believe the hypothesis first suggested by the late Brian Harland, and his Cambridge Arctic Shelf Precambrian–Lower Paleozoic basement rocks of Sval- Programme (CASP) co-workers (e.g., Harland & Wright bard consist of sediments, metasediments and igneous 1979; Harland 1997), that Svalbard’s basement com- rocks, ranging in age from the Riphean (1275 Mya) to prises three structural provinces that were brought the Silurian. The entire succession has a maximum together by large-scale lateral movements during this aggregate thickness of around 20 km, and has been main orogenic phase. A several-kilometre-thick succes- assigned to 20 different lithostratigraphical groups, col- sion of post-orogenic “Old Red” facies sediments of late lectively referred to as “Hecla Hoek”. This complexity in Silurian to early Devonian age is essentially confined to part reflects the many nations and stratigraphical phi- a major graben on northern Spitsbergen, and such losophies involved in the research, but also the geological sediments have not been identified elsewhere in the reality that there are a wide variety of rocks and succes- subsurface of the western shelf. The shift from red to sions exposed, grouped generally into three terranes. The grey sediments around the early to mid-Devonian tran- north-eastern terrane comprises Precambrian igneous sition is noteworthy, and indicates the transition from and predominantly sedimentary rocks, including late the southern arid zone to the equatorial tropics. Spits- Precambrian glacial clastics and carbonates, and also bergen itself then saw a final phase of Caledonian Lower Paleozoic sediments: all with clear affinities to deformation in the late Devonian—the so-called Sval- exposures in north-east Greenland. The north-western bardian movements, which are correlative with the province is characterized by deep crustal metamorphics, Ellesmerian orogeny of Arctic Canada. CASP workers including gneiss, migmatite and eclogite, whereas the (e.g., Friend & Moody Stuart 1972) originally suggested south-western terrane is a complex mix of metasedi- that this phase also involved extensive lateral move- ments, typical of subduction-zone environments. ments on the scale of 200 km, finally bringing together Although the relationship between Svalbard and the elements of the present archipelago into their northern Norway during the main phase of Caledonian present position. However, this is now regarded as an 300 Polar Research 27 2008 298–317 © 2008 The Author D. Worsley Post-Caledonian Svalbard–Barents Sea essentially compressive tectonic event, with little or no Subsidence rates waned throughout the Triassic, and significant lateral movement. following major deltaic progradations from several provenance areas, the late Triassic to mid-Jurassic saw a stabilization of the entire area, with consequently rapidly Post-Svalbardian succession decreasing sedimentation rates, as extensional tectonism The post-Svalbardian evolution of the archipelago—and in the mid–late Jurassic established the major platform of the southwestern Barents Sea—is summarized here in and basin pattern that we see today. The Jurassic– terms of five main depositional phases, extending from Cretaceous regional development, mostly dominated by the late Devonian to the Neogene, each demonstrated fine clastic deposition, otherwise largely reflects the herein by palaeogeographical summary maps displaying development of the polar Euramerican Basin on the essential features of the varying sedimentational regimes. northern margins of the shelf. Widespread magmatism The stratigraphical nomenclature used herein is based along the northern shelf margin was accompanied by a on that of Worsley et al. (1988), Dallmann (1999) and general northerly uplift, prior to break-up and oceanic Larssen et al. (2005) for Svalbard and the south-western development—although there is still considerable contro- Barents Shelf.