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Patterns of Active Shear in Fennoscandia

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Earthquakes at North-Atlantic Passive Margins: Neotectonics and Postglacial Rebound

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 266))

Abstract

Of the fault plane solutions reported for 200 small earthquakes in Southern Sweden during 1980–1984, only one of each pair parallels the outcrops of fracture zones on the bedrock surface nearby. This activity is used to identify a pattern of active fault zones. These define an imbricated strike-slip lens that is contracting along its N-S length due to left handed transpression driven by compression along a subhorizontal NW axis. The pattern of active faulting in southern Sweden is used as a key to interpret all the seismicity recorded in Fennoscandia over the last 400 years. The seismic pattern suggests NW trending transpressional duplexes in the north and south of Fennoscandia, connected by NE trending left handed transextensional zones along the coast of Norway and Sweden. The pattern that emerges is attributed to different plate spreading rates between various pairs of transforms in the North Atlantic as it opened about a succession of spreading poles during the last 58 Ma. The strike slip lenses in the N and S of Fennoscandia are interpreted as extrapolations of the Jan Mayen and Iceland transforms in the last 38 Ma, but the Senja and Jan Mayen transforms between 58 and 38 Ma. Where known in detail, the shorelines and contours of post-glacial land-uplift-rate are irregular. Such irregularities can be attributed to faulting before and during uplift and suggest that many more neotectonic fault scarps exist in Fennoscandia than have been so far recognised.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hans Ramberg Tectonic laboratory, Box 555, S-752 22, Uppsala, Sweden

    Christopher J. Talbot

  2. National Defense Research Institute, Box 27322, S-102 54, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ragnar Slunga

Authors
  1. Christopher J. Talbot
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  2. Ragnar Slunga
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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Talbot, C.J., Slunga, R. (1989). Patterns of Active Shear in Fennoscandia. In: Earthquakes at North-Atlantic Passive Margins: Neotectonics and Postglacial Rebound. NATO ASI Series, vol 266. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2311-9_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2311-9_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7538-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2311-9

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