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Western Slave Study (NTGO contact: Valerie Jackson)

Last updated December 2, 2011

A study of the lower crust/lithospheric mantle beneath the western Slave Province and eastern Wopmay Orogen was initiated in the fall of 2002. This was a collaborative study involving geoscientists from the Geological Survey of Canada, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, POLARIS, and the Northwest Territories Geoscience Office. A total of five teleseismic stations were deployed; two in 2002 at Grizzle Bear (GBLN) and Indin (ILKN) lakes, two in 2004 at Castor Lake (CLTN) and at the community of Gameti (GALN), and one in 2007 east of Rome Lake (ROMN; see map below and on NTGO's Southern Wopmay Orogen page). These instruments have since been removed; however, data collected from them has undergone initial interpretation (see Snyder, 2008, 2010, and 2011; Snyder and Bruneton, 2006). Since 2007, four more teleseismic stations have been deployed; these are at Hepburn Lake, Sulky Lake, Kugluktuk, and Colville Lake. Data from these stations will help to define the northwestern limit of the Slave craton and should also provide information on the deep structure of northern Wopmay orogen.
The Gameti seismic station, March 2006.
The Castor Lake seismic station, July 2004.

click to enlarge

An approximately 300 km long magnetotelluric transect, spanning the southwestern Slave Province and the southern Wopmay Orogen, was completed in 2004. The data was collected from 21 stations (see map and diagram below), although one station suffered from recurrent bear problems, and results have been interpreted in Spratt, et al. 2009). The completed magnetotelluric profile complements existing data acquired under the Lithoprobe SNORCLE transect and the collaborative POLARIS program.

click to enlarge
Setting up one of the "MT" data collection sites.

References

Hoffman, P.F., and Hall, L., 1993, Geology, Slave craton and environs, District of Mackenzie, Northwest Territories: Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 2559, map scale 1:1 000 000.

Jackson, V.A., 2006, Preliminary geologic map of part of the Southern Wopmay Orogen (parts of NTS 86B and 86C): Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, NWT Open Report 2006-004, 1 map, scale 1:100 000 and accompanying report, 41 p.

Pierce, K.L., and Turner, W.A., 2004, A GIS compilation of the southern Wopmay Orogen (South of 65 °N): NWT Open Report 2004-005, 1 CD-ROM.

Snyder, D. B., 2008. Stacked uppermost mantle layers within the Slave craton of NW Canada as defined by anisotropic seismic discontinuities, Tectonics, 27, TC4006, doi:10.1029/2007TC002132.

Snyder, D. B., 2010. Do diamondiferous kimberlites preferentially erupt at margins of Archean blocks within the Canadian Shield? GeoCanada 2010, Calgary, AB, 10 May, 2010, 5 p (in press).

Snyder, D. B., 2011. A craton's edge. GAC-MAC-SEG-SGA Joint Meeting, Ottawa, May, 2011, Abstract Volume (in press).

Snyder, D. and Bruneton, M., 2006. Mantle structure beneath the Wopmay margin of the Slave: Archean or Proterozoic? in Jones, A.L. and Irwin, D. (compilers), 2006. 34th Annual Yellowknife Geoscience Forum Abstracts; Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, Yellowknife, NT. YKGSF Abstracts Volume 2006, p. 52.

Spratt, J. E., A. G. Jones, V. A. Jackson, L. Collins, and A. Avdeeva (2009), Lithospheric geometry of the Wopmay orogen from a Slave craton to Bear Province magnetotelluric transect, J. Geophys. Res., 114, B01101, doi:10.1029/2007JB005326.

Stubley, M.P., 2005, Slave Craton: Interpretive bedrock compilation: Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, NWT-NU Open File 2005-01, Digital files and 2 maps.