Tectonics, stratigraphy, and natural resource potential of magma-poor rift margins

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The North Atlantic Ocean developed as a result of continental rift processes that broke the resource-rich Newfoundland margin away from the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe. Continental breakup was part of a long-term rift evolution that included the upward rise or cooling of rock units that underlie eastern Newfoundland and downward burial or heating of sedimentary basins that are now producing oil fields in the Grand Banks. This research program will focus on North Atlantic source-to-sink patterns, including the interplay between rift flank uplift, sediment transfer from rift flank to sedimentary basin, and burial of hydrocarbon reservoirs to better understand these continental margin processes along Newfoundland and Portugal. The knowledge gained will be used to characterize modern continental margins and then subsequently identify North Atlantic-type rift examples in the geological record, including ancient rock successions in what is now the Rocky Mountains region of western Canada. Most of the planned research in the North Atlantic region will combine field-based geological observations with laboratory-based measurements of sandstone rock units, including producing hydrocarbon reservoirs, to quantify the timing, rates, and time-temperature patterns of rift evolution. Complementary research activities will determine the precise age of ancient volcanoes and related zinc and lead massive sulphide occurrences in Yukon, which likely formed after continental breakup and may be telltale features of ancient North Atlantic-type rift systems. Memorial University of Newfoundland students will be trained in both traditional field- and contemporary laboratory-based scientific methods, which will help prepare them for competitive university, government, and industry job positions in Canada and elsewhere. The results are expected to deliver transformative concepts about continental margins to public and private sector partners and spawn new lines of academic and commercial research on landscape evolution, the preservation of economically significant hydrocarbon and base-metal accumulations, and the interconnectedness of surficial-, shallow-, and deep-earth processes during rifting.