BAIE VERTE PENINSULA: AN EVOLVING GEOLOGICAL STORY

THOMAS SKULSKI; SÉBASTIEN CASTONGUAY; CEES VAN STAAL; VICKI MCNICOLL; ANDREW KERR; MONICA ESCAYOLA

Baie Verte

Workshop; FIELDGUIDE The Geology of Baie Verte Peninsula, Newfoundalnd; 2009

Geological Survey of Canada

OVERVIEW OF THE FIELD TRIP The 2009 Geological Association of Canada (Newfoundland and Labrador Section) field trip takes us to the Baie Verte Peninsula of northeastern Newfoundland. This is not the first excursion to this area, for it has long been critical in the development of modern tectonic models for Newfoundland and the Appalachian Orogenic belt in general. Like all “classic” areas in the geology of mountain belts, the peninsula reserves as many questions as it answers. In the light of recent work conducted through the TGI‐ 3 Appalacahians Project of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), and related work completed by the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador (GSNL) and mineral exploration companies, new insights into these problems have emerged. At the same time, new ideas and concepts, coupled with new data, lead to unexpected new questions! The purpose of our field trip is to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of ideas developed over the last few years. These relate particularly to correlations amongst the ophiolite complexes and their volcanosedimentary cover sequences that host most of the peninsula’s mineral resources. The field trip does not emphasize visits to the mineral deposits themselves, but rather emphasizes their geological framework and its relevance to exploration. This guidebook is in many respects a preliminary document assembled within a short time‐frame, and it may contain some unavoidable inconsistencies and deficiencies. Nevertheless, it is a valuable first step in a new synthesis of potentially important geological relationships in a key area for both tectonics and mineral exploration, and we hope that this field trip will move us closer to this objective.