Interplay between folding and ductile shearing in the Proterozoic crust of the Muskoka – Parry Sound region, central Ontario

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Abstract
Grenville gneiss of the central Georgian Bay region was subjected to ductile deformation that produced narrow mylonite zones as well as three sets of superimposed folds differing greatly in structural signature, size, and orientation. Some mylonite zones are concordant to gneissosity and are repeatedly folded, others cut gneissosity and postdate the folding. Gneissosity was generated as a regionally subhorizontal feature, either by crustal thinning or, like the early mylonite zones, by low-angle reverse shearing. An attempt is made to account for the initially subhorizontal gneissosity, the mylonite zones, and the folds in a regime of large-scale reverse shearing that strikes parallel to the Grenville Front.Upright northwest–southwest to north–south buckle folds dominate the map pattern and are subperpendicular to the reverse Grenville Front boundary fault. These set-2 folds cannot be attributed to reverse simple shearing but require a large component of east–west compression. Such stress could have been generated in a northwest–southeast zone of sinistral ductile shear caused by temporary locking of the southern segment of the Grenville Front boundary fault (now under Lake Huron).All structural facts can be explained without large differential translations of crustal slices. For example, most discordances in the regional gneissosity pattern could have been created by décollement and repeated buckling. Detailed geobarometry and petrologic studies may be required to settle the question of large-scale thrusting within the Grenville gneiss terrane.

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