Timing of Paleozoic Exhumation and Deformation of the High-Pressure Vestgotabreen Complex at the Motalafjella Nunatak, Svalbard

The Vestgotabreen Complex exposed in the Southwestern Caledonian Basement Province of Svalbard comprises two Caledonian high-pressure units. In situ white mica 40Ar /39Ar and monazite Th-U-total Pb geochronology has resolved the timing of the tectonic evolution of the complex. Cooling of the Upper Unit during exhumation occurred at 476 2 Ma, shortly after eclogite-facies metamorphism. The two units were juxtaposed at 454 6 Ma. This was followed by subaerial exposure and deposition of Bullbreen Group sediments. A 430-400 Ma late Caledonian phase of thrusting associated with major sinistral shearing throughout Svalbard deformed both the complex and the overlying sediments. This phase of thrusting is prominently recorded in the LowerUnit, and is associated with a pervasive greenschist-facies metamorphic overprint of high-pressure lithologies. A c. 365-344 Ma geochronological record may represent an Ellesmerian tectonothermal overprint. Altogether, the geochronological evolution of the Vestgotabreen Complex, with previous petrological and structural studies, suggests that it may be a correlative to the high-pressure Tsakkok Lens in the Scandinavian Caledonides. It is suggested that the Vestgotabreen Complex escaped to the periphery of the orogen along the sinistral strike-slip shear zones prior to, or during the initial stages of continental collision between Baltica and Laurentia.