In the Basin and Range province of southwestern North America, Oligocene and Miocene normal faults are superimposed upon the Late Cretaceous-early Tertiary magmatic arc. This study examines tilted fault blocks containing dismembered pieces of porphyry systems, including pieces below and peripheral to ore bodies, that are exposed at the modern surface. Features in the magmatic-hydrothermal porphyry systems are used to place constraints on the style of extension in Arizona, and reconstructions of extension are used to examine the deep and peripheral portions of porphyry systems to provide a more complete understanding of porphyry systems as a whole. The Eagle Pass, Tea Cup, and Sheep Mountain porphyry systems of Arizona are examined in this study. In all the study areas, previous interpretations of the style of extension involved strongly listric normal faults. However, similar amounts of tilting observed in hanging wall and footwall rocks, as well as structure contour maps of fault planes, require that down dip curvature on faults was minimal (<1°/km. Instead, extension is shown here to have occurred as sets of nearly planar, "domino-style" normal faults were superimposed upon one another, including in the Pinaleño metamorphic core complex. Reconstructions of Tertiary extension reveal that sodic (-calcic) alteration is occurs 2-4 km peripheral to, and greisen alteration is found structurally below and overlapping with, potassic alteration. In addition, a preliminary reconstruction of extension across the Laramide magmatic arc reveals that the geometry, as revealed by known porphyry systems, is of similar scale to that of other magmatic arcs. These results help further the debate surrounding competing models of continental extension, and combine with previous work to provide a more complete understanding of the geometries of Arizona porphyry systems at the district and arc scale.

In a well-defined subrecess in the Appalachian thrust belt in northwestern Georgia, two distinct regional strike directions intersect at approximately 50°. Fault intersections and interference folds enable tracing of both structural strikes. Around the subrecess, tectonically thickened weak stratigraphic layers—shales of the Cambrian Conasauga Formation—accommodated ductile deformation associated with the folding and faulting of the overlying Cambrian–Ordovician regional competent layer. The structures in the competent layer are analogous to those over ductile duplexes (mushwads) documented along strike to the southwest in Alabama. The intersection and fold interference exemplify a long-standing problem in volume balancing of palinspastic reconstructions of sinuous thrust belts. Cross sections generally are constructed perpendicular to structural strike, parallel to the assumed slip direction. An array of cross sections around a structural bend may be restored and balanced individually; however, restorations perpendicular to strike across intersecting thrust faults yield an imbalance in the along-strike lengths of frontal ramps. The restoration leads to a similar imbalance in the surface area of a stratigraphic horizon, reflecting volume imbalance in three dimensions. The tectonic thickening of the weak-layer shales is evident in palinspastically restored cross sections, which demonstrate as much as 100% increase in volume over the restored-state cross sections. The cause of the surplus shale volume is likely prethrusting deposition of thick shale in a basement graben that was later inverted. The volume balance of the ductile duplex is critical for palinspastic reconstruction of the recess, and for the kinematic history and mechanics of the ductile duplex.

Introduction : la Terre au Trias inférieur et la reconquête après l’extinction fini-PermienneSitué après la limite entre le Paléozoïque et le Mésozoïque, le Trias inférieur est un intervalle court (~4Ma seulement ; Ovtcharova et al., 2006 ; Galfetti et al., 2007a ; Baresel et al., 2017). Lors de la transition entre le Permien et le Trias (PTB), la configuration tectonique de la Terre était différente, et la plupart des masses continentales étaient rassemblées en un seul super continent, la Pangée, lui-même entouré par un unique océan global, la Panthalassa (e.g., Murphy & Nance, 2008 ; Murphy et al., 2009 ; Stampfli et al., 2013).Lors de cette transition et durant le Trias inférieur, un évènement volcanique majeur, la mise en place de la grande province ignée de Sibérie (e.g., Ivanov et al., 2009, 2013), a conduit à l’émission de grande quantité de gaz à effet de serre (e.g., Galfetti et al., 2007b ; Romano et al., 2013). Ceux-ci ont contribué à l’acidification de la colonne d’eau et à l’augmentation des températures consécutivement à l’injection de CO2 dans l’atmosphère (e.g., Galfetti et al., 2007b ; Sun et al., 2012 ; Romano et al., 2013).Les perturbations environnementales qui en découlèrent ont eu des conséquences sur les milieux de dépôts associés à cette période, mais également sur les écosystèmes. Elles sont supposées avoir contribué à la mise en place de conditions délétères pour les organismes et avoir perduré durant tout le Trias inférieur, restreignant ainsi la rediversification biologique d’après-crise (e.g., Pruss & Bottjer, 2004 ; Fraiser & Bottjer, 2007 ; Bottjer et al., 2008 ; Algeo et al., 2011 ; Meyer et al., 2011 ; Bond & Wignall, 2014 ; Song et al., 2014).La limite PT fut le théâtre de la plus importante et la plus destructrice crise biologique du Phanérozoïque, et fut responsable de la disparition de plus de 90% des espèces marines (Raup, 1979), ou encore de la perte d’environ 50% des familles de tétrapodes continentaux (Benton & Newell, 2014), pour ne citer que ces deux exemples. De nombreux groupes ont été oblitérés durant cette extinction, comme par exemple les groupes caractéristiques du Paléozoïque tels que les coraux tabulés ou encore les trilobites (Sepkoski, 2002). Cependant, si la Vie a failli s’éteindre à l’aube du Mésozoïque, celle-ci a tout de même pu se reconstruire, au prix d’une rediversification communément admise comme lente et difficile dans des conditions environnementales délétères (e.g., Twitchett, 1999 ; Fraiser & Bottjer, 2007 ; Meyer et al., 2011 ; Chen & Benton, 2012). De grands paradigmes sont couramment associés à la rediversification du Trias inférieur (illustrés dans la Figure R.1a) :La présence de taxons « désastre », représentant des organismes opportunistes et généralistes qui auraient proliféré à la suite de la libération de niches écologiques laissées vacantes par les métazoaires disparus (e.g. ; Schubert & Bottjer, 1992, 1995 ; Rodland & Bottjer, 2001 ; He et al., 2007) ;Des faciès dit « anachroniques », composés de récifs exclusivement microbiens tels ceux trouvés dans les dépôts Précambriens (e.g., Schubert & Bottjer, 1992 ; Woods et al., 1999 ; Pruss & Bottjer, 2005 ; Pruss et al., 2005 ; Woods, 2009) ;Un effet « Lilliput », soit un nanisme généralisé des faunes présentes (e.g., Urbanek, 1993 ; Hautmann & Nützel, 2005 ; Payne, 2005 ; Twitchett, 2007 ; Fraiser et al., 2011 ; Metcalfe et al., 2011 ; Song et al., 2011) ;Une anoxie/euxinie généralisée dans le domaine marin, y compris littoral (e.g., Isozaki, 1997 ; Meyer et al., 2011 ; Song et al., 2012 ; Grasby et al., 2013).Fig. R.1 : a) Représentation synthétique des principaux paradigmes communément acceptés pour la rediversification biologique au cours du Trias inférieur. b) Représentation synthétique de ces mêmes paradigmes, révisés selon les données récemment recueillies dans le bassin ouest-américain (d’après Brayard, 2015). Inf. : inférieur ; m. : moyen ; s./sup. : supérieur (...). / In the wake of the Mesozoic, the Early Triassic (~251.95 Ma) corresponds to the aftermath of the most severe mass extinction of the Phanerozoic: the end-Permian crisis, when life was nearly obliterated (e.g., 90% of marine species disappeared). Consequences of this mass extinction are thought to have prevailed for several millions of years, implying a delayed recovery lasting the whole Early Triassic, if not more.Several paradigms have been established and associated to a delayed biotic recovery scenario expected to have resulted from harsh and deleterious paleoenvironments. These paradigms include a global anoxia in the marine realm, a “Lilliput” effect, and the presence of “disaster” taxa and “anachronistic” facies. However, recent works have shown a more complex global scheme for the Early Triassic recovery, and that a reevaluation of these paradigms was needed. Especially, new data from the western USA basin were critical in re-addressing these paradigms.The western USA basin is the result of a long tectono-sedimentary history that started 2 Gyr ago by the amalgamation of different lithospheric terranes forming its basement. A succession of orogenies and quiescence phases led to the formation of several successive basins in the studied area, and traces of this important geodynamical activity are still present today. The Sonoma orogeny occurred about 252 Ma in response to the eastward migration of drifting arcs toward the Laurentian craton. As a result, compressive constrains lead to the obduction of the Golconda Allochthon above the west-Pangea margin in present-day Nevada. Emplacement of this topographic load provoked the lithosphere flexuration beneath present-day Utah and Idaho to form the Sonoma Foreland Basin (SFB) studied in this work.The SFB record an excellent fossil and sedimentary record of the Early Triassic. A relatively high and complex biotic diversity has been observed there leading to describe a rapid and explosive recovery for some groups (e.g., ammonoids) in this basin after the end-Permian crisis. The sedimentary record is also well developed and has been studied extensively for a long time. Overall, these studies notably documented a marked difference between the northern and southern sedimentary succession within the basin, whose origin was poorly understood.This work therefore aims to characterize the various depositional settings in the Early Triassic SFB, as well as their paleogeographical distribution. Their controlling factors are also studied based on an original integrated method using sedimentological, paleontological, geochemical, geodynamical, structural and cartographic analyses. Aside the fossil and sedimentary discrepancy between the northern and the southern parts of the SFB, geochemical analyses provide new insights supporting this N/S dichotomy. This study also questions the validity of the geochemical signal as a tool for global correlation, as it appears to mainly reflect local forcing parameters.The geodynamical framework of the SFB was also investigated along with a numerical modelling of the rheological behavior of the basin. This work distinguishes the northern and southern parts of the basin based on markedly distinct tectonic subsidence rates during the Early Triassic: ~500 m/Myr in the northern part vs ~100m/Myr in the southern part. Origin of this remarkable difference is found in inherited properties of the basin basement itself. Indeed, different ages and therefore, rheological behaviors (i.e., rigidity to deformation and flexuration) of the basement lithospheric terranes act as a major controlling factor over the spatial distribution of the subsidence, and therefore of the sedimentary deposition. The lithosphere heritage is thus of paramount importance in the formation, development and spatio-temporal evolution of the SFB.This work leads to a new paleogeographical representation of the Sonoma Foreland Basin and its multi-parameter controlling factors (...).