Paleo-Stress History and Basin Evolution: Tertiary Central Basin of Spitsbergen

板块重建和早期的区域地质填图导致了这样的概念，即斯皮茨卑尔根西缘的第三纪变形是挪威-格陵兰海开放期间横流运动的结果。这项调查将检验诺丁斯基奥德兰中央盆地古新世-始新世下沉是走滑构造的直接结果的假设，到目前为止，这一结果只能从沉积学数据中推断出来，还没有得到构造证据的证实。这项调查将包括对诺丁斯基奥德兰西部白垩纪和古新世单元的微观和中尺度地质结构的详细测量。利用创新的微结构分析技术，结合迭代的计算机数值模拟，将确定古应力主轴的方向、相对时序和相对大小，从而记录与中央盆地形成同期的古应力场。

Plate reconstructions and earlier regional geologic, mapping have lead to the concept that the Tertiary deformation of Spitsbergen's western margin was a consequence of transcurrent motion during the opening of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea. This investigation will test the hypothesis that the Paleocene-Eocene subsidence of the Central Basin in Nordenskioldland is a direct result of strike-slip tectonics, a result so far only inferred from sedimentological data, and not yet corroborated by structural evidence. This investigation will include detailed measurement of micro- and meso-scale geologic structures in Cretaceous and Paleocene units in western Nordenskioldland. Using innovative microstructure-analysis techniques which incorporate iterative numerical computer modelling, the orientations, relative timing, and the relative magnitudes of the principal axes of the paleostress will be determined thus documenting paleo-stress fields coeval with the formation of the Central Basin.