Late Ordovician–early Silurian destruction of the Iapetus Ocean: Newfoundland, British Isles and Scandinavia—a discussion

Abstract

ABSTRACT The available data from Newfoundland, the British Isles and Scandinavia suggest that by late Ordovician–early Silurian times the ocean separating Laurentia from Eastern Avalonia and Baltica had partly closed with the consumption of intervening oceanic crust. Marine seaways, however, persisted until the middle or late Silurian. Phases of crustal transtension and transpression, predominantly under a major sinistral shear couple, occurred throughout the Silurian and early Devonian until the remnant Iapetus Ocean was completely destroyed. The most appropriate Recent plate tectonic models for Silurian sedimentation between Eastern Avalonia and Laurentia are probably the deep-marine foreland basins between Timor and the northern Australian margin, or between Taiwan and mainland China.