ortions of Canada collided 500 mln years earlier than previously thought

A team of geologists from the University of Alberta have found in a recent study that portions of Canada collided a minimum of 500 million years earlier than previously thought.

Washington, July 22 : A team of geologists from the University of Alberta have found in a recent study that portions of Canada collided a minimum of 500 million years earlier than previously thought.

Scientists say the findings offer new insight into how the different continental fragments of North America assembled billions of years ago.

As part of his study, lead researcher Michael Schultz, a graduate student at the U of A, explored the Queen Maud block of Arctic Canada, a large bedrock terrain that is said to occupy a keystone tectonic position in Northern Canada. Due to its remote location, the Queen Maud block has remained understudied.

The team reached the rugged Northern Canadian location in helicopters and discovered-through field work and lab analysis-that the sedimentary basins within the terrain, and the age and timing of high-temperature metamorphism of the rocks found there, challenged previous models.

"In terms of trying to figure out how Canada formed, this block held a lot of secrets. Every time we did an analysis, it gave us a new piece of information that was nothing we were expecting, based on what was known in the geological community," said Schultz.

The findings appear in the journal Geology.

ANI