Aspects of Deformation and Strain in the Appalachian Fold -Thrust Belt (New York) and the Shear Zones of the Sveconorwegian Orogen (Norway)

182 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.This dissertation addresses aspects of structural geology in two locations. In the first chapter, detailed geologic mapping and preliminary cross-sectional construction define along-strike changes in the structural architecture of the Alleghanian (Late Paleozoic) northern Appalachian foreland fold-thrust belt, near the town of Rosendale in southeastern New York State. Results suggest that along-strike thinning (from south to north) of rigid units within the Silurian-Devonian stratigraphic sequence caused a decrease in the amplitude of megascopic folds and a decrease in the spacing of thrust faults. Changes were accommodated by development of lateral ramps and by the dying-out of faults into fault-related folds. The second chapter compares results of different techniques for measuring grain-scale deformation in samples collected from exposures of the Late Silurian Binnewater Sandstone near Rosendale. Normalized-Fry and Rf/&phis; strain-analysis methods suggest that this unit accumulated only very low shortening strains (e.g., Fry results yielded