Basin Architecture of the Newfoundland Continental Margin and Its Relationship to Ocean Crust Fabric During Extension: Chapter 13: North American Margins

Petroleum exploration and research activity over the past two decades have resulted in a substantial amount of geophysical and geological data, including seismic reflection, deep exploration wells, gravity, and magnetics. This chapter attempts to synthesize and integrate the data toward a tectonic-structural map of the Grand Banks and Orphan basins. The regional distribution of transfer fault azimuths from NW-SE on the Grand Banks to SW-NE in the Orphan basin is matched by the trends of flow lines in the adjacent ocean floors. These similarities suggest structural linkage between the extensional fabric of the continental crust and the pattern of ocean opening. A temporal relationship between basin-forming events and sequential opening of the Atlantic is implied from t e correlation of Jeanne d'Arc sequence stratigraphy with the timing of intermittent plate reorganizations recorded in magnetic anomalies and disruptions in fracture-zone or flow-line lineations. These spatial and temporal relationships link episodic subsidence of the continental margin and oceanic plate motions.