Insights from the Jan Mayen System in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea: Architecture & Evolution of a Microcontinent

Gwenn Peron-Pinvidic, Laurent Gernigon, and Carmen Gaina
NGU, Trondheim, Norway.

The processes related to the formation of microcontinents are not well understood, with only a handful of studies that attempted to comprehend this problem. In this contribution, we bring new observations to feed the debates around microcontinent’s formation and evolution. We present results from a study in the central part of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea within a system that involves a complex rifted margins setting and different phases of deformation and continental breakup. The compilation of vintage seismic reflection profiles with a more recent dataset, combined with detailed potential field analyses and modelling, permitted to revise the basement and sedimentary geometries of the Jan Mayen microcontinent (JMMC). We established an unprecedented detailed structural map of the JMMC that illustrates, among others, the spatial distribution of Seaward Dipping Reflectors (SDRs), the sedimentary units and the post-rift intrusions. The shallow stratigraphy is fairly well imaged and shows a multiphase Cenozoic evolution with alternations of magmatic phases (SDRs building, intrusions) and tectonic phases (high angle faulting, tilting of the main ridges). Our interpretation suggests that the JMMC structure is more complex than the simple, two main blocks described so far in the literature (the Main Ridge and the Southern Ridge Complex). Our model shows six distinct segments that evolved independently through different rifting phases. The new interpretation of the microcontinent architecture is presented in the conjugate margin system and used to update the spatial and temporal evolution of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea region. Finally, examples from the Arctic are discussed in the light of our present understanding of how microcontinents formed in the NE Atlantic.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90130©2011 3P Arctic, The Polar Petroleum Potential Conference & Exhibition, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 30 August-2 September, 2011.