Structural Analysis of the George River Group at North Mountain, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Abstract

Several different explanations of the structure of the George River rocks at North Mountain have been suggested in the past, none of which has proved to be very satisfactory.

Milligan has proposed that the structure is that of diverging, fan-like folds plunging westerly at about 40 degrees. This hypothesis was tested by plotting the detailed information on fold axis plunges, gathered by Keating, on stereonets and comparing the predicted and observed plunges. The results proved to be quite different from what was expected.

Further analysis of the distribution of rock types, combined with the stereogram results, suggested that more than one period of folding had occurred and that the structure is that of a primary set of folds plunging very steeply to the southeast on which a secondary set of folds, plunging to the west-southwest at about 30 to 40 degrees, have been superimposed.

Keywords: Pages: 38 Supervisor: G. C. Milligan